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The Movement of Refugees Podcast Epidsode

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The Movement of Refugees Podcast Epidsode

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Podcast_The Movement of Refugees and IDPS (1).ogg

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This episode was produced by Hugo, Portia, and Delina for the Siala Movement podcast project.

In this episode, we interviewed Zeinab Mohamed Aidid and Jacques Prevert Rumanyika from Alight, an organization that works closely with refugees, trafficked persons, and economic migrants, to co-design solutions that help them build full and fulfilling lives.

You can find out more about Alight here: https://wearealight.org/

Thanks for listening to our first episode!

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The Movement of Refugees by Siala Movement Podcast

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This episode was produced by Hugo, Portia, and Delina for the Siala Movement podcast project. In this episode, we interviewed Zeinab Mohamed Aidid and Jacques Prevert Rumanyika from Alight, an organization that works closely with refugees, trafficked persons, and economic migrants, to co-design solutions that help them build full and fulfilling lives.

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Make music online together by recording and using loops.Invite friends to collaborate. It's free and no download is required. Works on Mac, Windows, Chromebooks, iPhone, Android and Linux.

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Podcast Script (Noah, Jackson, Neeyati, Theo)

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A decade of rapid economic growth, the inclusion of food and nutrition security in the government's 'big four' priorities, constitutional changes that devolve administrative responsibilities to county governments and the country's openness to innovation offer opportunities for the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 2 on Zero Hunger and improved nutrition in Kenya. However, even though the country has recently acquired lower-middle-income status, the increased wealth has not benefited all Kenyans equally. Over one third of the population still lives under the international poverty line and social, economic and gender disparities remain.

Access to adequate quantities of nutritious food remains a challenge for many, especially in arid and semi-arid regions which make up 80 percent of the country's land area. Factors include rapid population growth - at a rate of 2.9 percent a year - climate change, stagnating agricultural production and inefficient food systems. Food insecure families typically live in rural areas, are poor and depend on daily agricultural labour for income. Families headed by women are more likely to be food insecure than those headed by men.

Malnutrition remains unacceptably high, with 29 percent of children in rural areas and 20 percent of those living in cities stunted. Significant vitamin and mineral deficiencies are a severe public health problem and some 1.5 million people living with HIV have their nutrition status undermined by their condition.

Agriculture remains the main economic driver but is very vulnerable to climate shocks. Unpredictable rainfall and recurring droughts contribute to the disruption of crops - 95 percent of which are rain-fed - and the erosion of soils. Inefficiencies in food systems - the networks that are needed to produce and transform food, and ensure it reaches consumers - lead to high prices and insufficient market supplies, limiting the availability of, and access to, food.

Kenya hosts 500,000 refugees, mainly in camps in remote, food-insecure counties. Unable to work or move freely, refugees are highly dependent on international assistance. Opportunities for fostering self-reliance are being promoted and may be expanded to larger refugee populations.

The World Food Programme (WFP) is accelerating its shift from the direct provision of food assistance and services in Kenya to the strengthening of national systems and capacities to deliver food and nutrition security.

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A decade of rapid economic growth, the inclusion of food and nutrition security in the government's 'big four' priorities, constitutional changes that devolve administrative responsibilities to county governments and the country's openness to innovation offer opportunities for the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 2 on Zero Hunger and improved nutrition in Kenya.

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Class Code: buk9290

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Instantly access over 40,000 of the best books & videos for kids on Epic

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Get unlimited access to 40,000 of the best books, audiobooks, videos, & more for kids 12 and under. Try it free.

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What Would Happen if the Earth had no Deserts?

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What Would Happen if the Earth had no Deserts?

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Answer 1:

It is true that O ₂ and CO ₂ are generated by lifeforms and in a desert there is less biomass (although microbes are everywhere).

But the reason why there would be no gradients in atmosphere composition is because the atmosphere, specifically the troposphere which extends from the ground up to about 10 km in the arctic and from ground to about 15 km in the tropics is turbulently mixed throughout at all levels and at all times.

If it were not, if it were static then gravity would act and produce a compositionally zoned atmosphere with heavy components such as Xe and CO ₂ to be at a lower mean height than other less dense species like H ₂O and O ₂. This does not happen because the mixing time of the atmosphere is rather short....

If a volcano erupts in the southwest pacific today and pumps a lot of sulfur gasses into the atmosphere THERE, the H ₂S and SO ₂ gases will be dispersed around the globe in a matter of weeks to months. So, the atmosphere above a desert is constantly being mixed with for example marine air on a timescale of days to weeks if that.

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Answer 1: It is true that O 2 and CO 2 are generated by lifeforms and in a desert there is less biomass (although microbes are everywhere).

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Environment, Land use / Resources, Economy, Population / Demographics, Infrastructure, Health -- CIA World Factbook, 2005
Forest Cover, Forest types, Breakdown of forest types, Change in Forest Cover, Primary forests, Forest designation, Disturbances affecting forest land, Value of forests, Production, trade and consumption of forest products -- The FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS's Global Forest Resources Assessment (2005 & 2010) and the State of the World's Forests (2009, 2007, 2005, 2003, 2001)
Protected Areas, Plant and animal biodiversity -- United Nations Environment Programme - World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC). 2004. World Database on Protected Areas.
Biosphere reservers -- United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) - Man and Biosphere Program. 2004. UNESCO - MAB Biosphere Reserves Directory.
RAMSAR sites -- The Bureau of the Convention on Wetlands . 2005. The Ramsar List of Wetlands of International Importance.
World Resources Institute's EarthTrends web site
The 2004 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
Population Data -- United Nations Population Fund
With additional analysis by Rhett Butler of mongabay.com

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Environment, Land use / Resources, Economy, Population / Demographics, Infrastructure, Health -- CIA World Factbook, 2005 Forest Cover, Forest types, Breakdown of forest types, Change in Forest Cover, Primary forests, Forest designation, Disturbances affecting forest land, Value of forests, Production, trade and consumption of forest products -- The FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS's Global Forest Resources Assessment (2005 & 2010) and the State of the World's Forests (2009, 2007, 2005, 2003, 2001) Protected Areas, Plant and animal biodiversity -- United Nations Environment Programme - World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC).

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Table of Contents

Nyiri Desert, also called The Nyika, or Tarudesert, desert, south-central Kenya. It lies about 50 miles (80 km) east of Lake Magadi and near the northern border of Tanzania. The desert encompasses the Amboseli National Park, including the northern half of Lake Amboseli. Nairobi National Park lies at its northern extremity and Tsavo West National Park at its southern extremity. Parts of the desert have dense growths of small trees, many of them thorny and some of them poisonous. Game trails are marked among them. During the brief rainy season the trees have green leaves and flowers, but during the dry season they are bare and entwined by grayish green creepers and the hornlike fronds of prickly euphorbia. Water is scarce except in a few large springs and widely spaced riverbeds. Rocky hills, which overlie much older rocks, dot the plain. Baobab trees are found in the desert, some as old as two thousand years, their gray boles often as much as 10 feet (3 m) in diameter. Fauna includes elephant, giraffe, rhinoceros, lion, leopard, lesser kudu, and impala.

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Nyiri Desert, also called The Nyika, or Tarudesert, desert, south-central Kenya. It lies about 50 miles (80 km) east of Lake Magadi and near the northern border of Tanzania. The desert encompasses the Amboseli National Park, including the northern half of Lake Amboseli.

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As global temperatures rise and the human population expands, more of the planet is vulnerable to desertification, the permanent degradation of land that was once arable.

While interpretations of the term desertification vary, the concern centers on human-caused land degradation in areas with low or variable rainfall known as drylands: arid, semi-arid, and sub-humid lands. These drylands account for more than 40 percent of the world's terrestrial surface area.

While land degradation has occurred throughout history, the pace has accelerated, reaching 30 to 35 times the historical rate, according to the United Nations. This degradation tends to be driven by a number of factors, including urbanization, mining, farming, and ranching. In the course of these activities, trees and other vegetation are cleared away, animal hooves pound the dirt, and crops deplete nutrients in the soil. Climate change also plays a significant role, increasing the risk of drought.

All of this contributes to soil erosion and an inability for the land to retain water or regrow plants. About 2 billion people live on the drylands that are vulnerable to desertification, which could displace an estimated 50 million people by 2030.

Where is desertification happening, and why?

The risk of desertification is widespread and spans more than 100 countries, hitting some of the poorest and most vulnerable populations the hardest, since subsistence farming is common across many of the affected regions.

More than 75 percent of Earth's land area is already degraded, according to the European Commission's World Atlas of Desertification, and more than 90 percent could become degraded by 2050. The commission's Joint Research Centre found that a total area half of the size of the European Union (1.61 million square miles, or 4.18 million square kilometers) is degraded annually, with Africa and Asia being the most affected.

The drivers of land degradation vary with different locations, and causes often overlap with each other. In the regions of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan surrounding the Aral Sea, excessive use of water for agricultural irrigation has been a primary culprit in causing the sea to shrink, leaving behind a saline desert. And in Africa's Sahel region, bordered by the Sahara Desert to the north and savannas to the south, population growth has caused an increase in wood harvesting, illegal farming, and land-clearing for housing, among other changes.

The prospect of climate change and warmer average temperatures could amplify these effects. The Mediterranean region would experience a drastic transformation with warming of 2 degrees Celsius, according to one study, with all of southern Spain becoming desert. Another recent study found that the same level of warming would result in "aridification," or drying out, of up to 30 percent of Earth's land surface.

When land becomes desert, its ability to support surrounding populations of people and animals declines sharply. Food often doesn't grow, water can't be collected, and habitats shift. This often produces several human health problems that range from malnutrition, respiratory disease caused by dusty air, and other diseases stemming from a lack of clean water.

Desertification solutions

In 1994, the United Nations established the Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), through which 122 countries have committed to Land Degradation Neutrality targets, similar to the way countries in the climate Paris Agreement have agreed to targets for reducing carbon pollution. These efforts involve working with farmers to safeguard arable land, repairing degraded land, and managing water supplies more effectively.

The UNCCD has also promoted the Great Green Wall Initiative, an effort to restore 386,000 square miles (100 million hectares) across 20 countries in Africa by 2030. A similar effort is underway in northern China, with the government planting trees along the border of the Gobi desert to prevent it from expanding as farming, livestock grazing, and urbanization, along with climate change, removed buffering vegetation.

However, the results for these types of restoration efforts so far have been mixed. One type of mesquite tree planted in East Africa to buffer against desertification has proved to be invasive and problematic. The Great Green Wall initiative in Africa has evolved away from the idea of simply planting trees and toward the idea of " re-greening," or supporting small farmers in managing land to maximize water harvesting (via stone barriers that decrease water runoff, for example) and nurture natural regrowth of trees and vegetation.

"The absolute number of farmers in these [at-risk rural] regions is so large that even simple and inexpensive interventions can have regional impacts," write the authors of the World Atlas of Desertification, noting that more than 80 percent of the world's farms are managed by individual households, primarily in Africa and Asia. "Smallholders are now seen as part of the solution of land degradation rather than a main problem, which was a prevailing view of the past."

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Humans are driving the transformation of drylands into desert on an unprecedented scale around the world, with serious consequences. But there are solutions.

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There's no doubt in our minds that you are aware of the problem we face today of many of our wildlife becoming endangered, threatened, or vulnerable. Ultimately, if nothing is done, these species will then become extinct - never to be seen again.

Species which have been classified as being endangered or vulnerable are in need of specialized help and protection from anywhere and everywhere to do all that can be done to change the species status back to safe. You may be familiar with these terms but do you know the difference between the two?

Vulnerable Status

A species which has been classified as vulnerable is one which faces the threat of becoming extinct. They are still at the point where if something is done to help and change their status, they can prevent the species of becoming extinct.

Endangered Status

If a species has been defined as being endangered, this means that the species has passed being a vulnerable one and now if nothing is done and serious laws are not put into place to conserve and protect the species, they will ultimately not survive and the species will become extinct. A few examples of the last-resort efforts put into place to save an endangered species are things such as serious laws, putting aside land to relocate the species, as well as implementing breeding programs.

While each and every species which is on the endangered list is important, would like to highlight the ones that are found in both Tanzania & Kenya.

Tanzania: Endangered Species

There are a large number of species which are currently categorized as being endangered which are found in Tanzania. You can see a full list of them here, there are an astonishing 762 species that are endangered in Tanzania. Below we have highlighted a few that you may be lucky enough to spot on your next safari.

The Black Rhino

African Wild Dog

Chimpanzee

African white-bellied Pangolin

Lesser Kudu

Thomson's Gazelle

Kenya: Endangered Species

The list of species which are currently categorized as being endangered and found in Kenya is even bigger than those which are found in Tanzania.You can see a full list of Kenya's endangered species here, but below we have highlighted a few that you may be lucky enough to spot on your next safari.

Grevy's Zebra

The Black Rhino

Lesser Kudu

Thomson's Gazelle

Hirola/Hunter's Antelope

What Can Be Done?

While we as Asilia do all we possibly can to protect and conserve the areas we call home, we also do all we can to protect and conserve all of the wildlife that is found in these areas.

Asilia Giving is our online platform through whichyou may supportus on our journey to make areas and species thrive. There are a number of projects we support but ones that focus specifically on wildlife are the following; The Mara Lion Project; The Mara Cheetah Project; The Ruaha Carnivore Project; as well as our very own Chimpanzee Habituation Project.

In reality, your stay with Asilia directly impacts wildlife in a positive way. Just by choosing to spend time in our camps US$ 5 per person per night is set aside for conservation and social development projects that are vital to the sustainability of Africa's wild places.

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Endangered Species of East Africa | Asilia Africa

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There's no doubt in our minds that you are aware of the problem we face today of many of our wildlife becoming endangered, threatened, or vulnerable. Ultimately, if nothing is done, these species will then become extinct - never to be seen again.

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Meet Freerice

Freerice is an educational trivia game that helps you get smarter while making a difference for people around the world. Every question you answer correctly raises 10 grains of rice for the World Food Programme (WFP) to support its work saving and changing lives around the world.

Across the globe, up to 783 million people do not have enough food to eat. From reducing our food waste to ensuring access to nutritious food for everyone, we have a lot of work to do. At WFP, we believe that food is a human right and that everyone deserves to live in a #ZeroHunger world. Let's work together to fill everyone's plate.

Our Impact

Playing Freerice sends an important message: community matters, and only by coming together can we help solve global problems like food insecurity and poverty. By using your knowledge to do good, you're advocating for positive change and supporting our mission to achieve a world of Zero Hunger. Whether you are playing Freerice at school or learning about the UN Sustainable Development Goals, you are paving the path for brighter futures ahead through nutritious.

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Across the globe, up to 783 million people do not have enough food to eat. From reducing our food waste to ensuring access to nutritious food for everyone, we have a lot of work to do. At WFP, we believe that food is a human right and that everyone deserves to live in a #ZeroHunger world.

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Place Explorer Graph Browser Timelines Explorer Scatter Plot Explorer Map Explorer Statistical Variable Explorer Data Download Tool

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A decade of rapid economic growth, the inclusion of food and nutrition security in the government's 'big four' priorities, constitutional changes that devolve administrative responsibilities to county governments and the country's openness to innovation offer opportunities for the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 2 on Zero Hunger and improved nutrition in Kenya. However, even though the country has recently acquired lower-middle-income status, the increased wealth has not benefited all Kenyans equally. Over one third of the population still lives under the international poverty line and social, economic and gender disparities remain.

Access to adequate quantities of nutritious food remains a challenge for many, especially in arid and semi-arid regions which make up 80 percent of the country's land area. Factors include rapid population growth - at a rate of 2.9 percent a year - climate change, stagnating agricultural production and inefficient food systems. Food insecure families typically live in rural areas, are poor and depend on daily agricultural labour for income. Families headed by women are more likely to be food insecure than those headed by men.

Malnutrition remains unacceptably high, with 29 percent of children in rural areas and 20 percent of those living in cities stunted. Significant vitamin and mineral deficiencies are a severe public health problem and some 1.5 million people living with HIV have their nutrition status undermined by their condition.

Agriculture remains the main economic driver but is very vulnerable to climate shocks. Unpredictable rainfall and recurring droughts contribute to the disruption of crops - 95 percent of which are rain-fed - and the erosion of soils. Inefficiencies in food systems - the networks that are needed to produce and transform food, and ensure it reaches consumers - lead to high prices and insufficient market supplies, limiting the availability of, and access to, food.

Kenya hosts 500,000 refugees, mainly in camps in remote, food-insecure counties. Unable to work or move freely, refugees are highly dependent on international assistance. Opportunities for fostering self-reliance are being promoted and may be expanded to larger refugee populations.

The World Food Programme (WFP) is accelerating its shift from the direct provision of food assistance and services in Kenya to the strengthening of national systems and capacities to deliver food and nutrition security.

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A decade of rapid economic growth, the inclusion of food and nutrition security in the government's 'big four' priorities, constitutional changes that devolve administrative responsibilities to county governments and the country's openness to innovation offer opportunities for the achievement of

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NAIROBI, 2 July (IRIN) - The Kenyan government has released a report warning that millions of Kenyans are increasingly threatened by desertification.
In its latest National Action Programme on desertification, the environment and natural resources ministry said the phenomenon had "intensified and spread" in recent years, putting a severe strain on agriculture in the country.

The report said a combination of factors, ranging from population growth to frequent droughts which plagued the country between 1970 and 2000, had accelerated the rate of soil degradation in Kenya and reduced the per-capita food production in the country.

"Rapid population growth is exacerbating the existing problems of imbalance between human numbers and available arable land - deforestation, inappropriate land use and farming practices," the report said. "All these are among the major problems leading to food crises and desertification in Kenya."

According to the report, dry lands account for 88 percent of Kenya's total land surface, while forest cover continues to decrease rapidly, due mainly to clearance for settlement, extraction for timber, for commercial use and domestic use as well as removal for charcoal and fuel wood.

As a result, the country's forest cover has been reduced to a worrying 2.8 percent of the total land area. Furthermore, Kenya's forests are being cut much faster than they are being replaced, the report warned.

The report, which outlined a broad range of policies adopted by the Kenyan government to combat desertification, was released shortly after environmental activists in Kenya went to court to challenge the government's decision to denationalise some 4 percent of the country's remaining forests. The activists claim the excision would have a devastating impact on the country's fragile ecosystems.

The government announced in October 2001 it was planning to excise some 70,000 hectares (170,000 acres) as part of its programme to resettle landless people. The decision outraged environmental groups in Kenya, which were subsequently joined in their response by international conservation groups such as Survival International and Global Response.

[ENDS]

[This Item is Delivered to the English Service of the UN's IRIN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations. For further information, free subscriptions, or to change your keywords, contact e-mail: Irin@ocha.unon.org or Web: http://www.irinnews.org . If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Reposting by commercial sites requires written IRIN permission.]

Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2002

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Kenya: Desertification threatening millions, government warns - Kenya

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NAIROBI, 2 July (IRIN) - The Kenyan government has released a report warning that millions of Kenyans are increasingly threatened by desertification. In its latest National Action Programme on desertification, the environment and natural resources ministry said the phenomenon had "intensified and spread" in recent years, putting a severe strain on agriculture in the country.

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Last fall, the U.K.'s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs targeted badgers for culling-the selective killing of a species as a population control measure.

Badgers reportedly transmit bovine tuberculosis, a disease with a profound economic impact on farmers whose cows test positive. But a recent report by an independent panel leaked by the BBC said the culls failed in efficacy and humaneness. (Related: " Mr. Badger Should Be Worried: Britain Ponders a Cull.")

Proposed culls have made headlines in the United States as well. Wildlife managers have targeted bison in Montana and swans, geese, and deer in New York.

What's driving these high-profile culling programs? Are they necessary? Can they be done ethically? And what's at the heart of the debate between their proponents and their detractors?

We explored the controversy over culling with Mary Pearl, a conservationist with the City University of New York who formerly served as president of the Wildlife Trust, a nonprofit organization now called EcoHealth Alliance.

Wildlife culls have been in the news a lot lately. Is this a new practice?

I would say nature has been a culler, in the past, of wildlife species. It still is. If an animal becomes superabundant in a limited habitat, they're going to have either a die-off from starvation or some pathogen that will take advantage of their vulnerabilities. Then there's hunting by predators, including humans.

Today's culling is an artifact of our transition from having a lot of open, interconnected wilderness to having islands of wildlife habitat that then become almost like gigantic zoos. You have a finite exhibit area, and you can't let the population abundance go unmonitored.

There's also the effect of rapid global travel of wildlife, which is either intentionally introduced to new places or hitches a ride on an airplane or ship and moves from one part of the world to another. Newly arrived species can become superabundant in the absence of natural predators.

Bison were hunted nearly to extinction before conservation efforts began. Now they're being culled in Yellowstone National Park. Is culling a sign of the conservation movement's success?

Yes. You could also say that about the Canada geese, which were under protection and now are superabundant. And the white-tailed deer that was almost hunted to extinction as well.

Animals can be brought back. That's a wonderful thing about conservation. Often, if they're left in good habitats, populations will rebound. The problem is that they can become victims of their own success and become so abundant that they then become a threat to the survival of other species and to their own populations.

Last year, an excerpt of a book by Jim Sterba published in the Wall Street Journal said, "It is very likely that in the eastern United States today more people live in closer proximity to more wildlife than anywhere on Earth at any time in history." To what extent is culling the result of increasing interaction between humans and wild animals?

Well, you could say, "It's very likely that in the eastern United States today more people have toothaches than ever before," and that's because there are more people.

The more interesting question would be about the relative abundance of wildlife per person, and I'm not sure that that's different. There have always been people who have lived with and followed masses of animals, such as the Native American groups traveling with the bison or the indigenous people in the Arctic Circle following reindeer herds.

The northeastern U.S. landscape has changed dramatically. In the 1800s, New England and the mid-Atlantic forests were mostly converted to agricultural land, which eliminated a lot of forest species. Now it's reversed and we have 80 percent forest and 20 percent open land, and that's resulted in a big wildlife return.

But it has been selective. There are more white-tailed deer, but there are probably not more lynx. Deer do very well in the mosaic habitat of forested and open lands that we have created in suburbs. Animals that are human commensals also have become abundant, like raccoons and skunks.

In New York, where you live, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation recently proposed culling mute swans, but a public outcry forced the agency to reconsider. What factors went into the cull proposal?

First of all, they're an exotic invasive species. They're native to Europe. The introduced birds were rare before the 1960s. More recently, their populations have grown dramatically in some areas.

The problem is, beyond their numbers, that they are huge birds with seven-foot [two-meter] wingspans and a big impact on the ecosystem. They eat between five and eight pounds [2.3 and 3.6 kilograms] of aquatic vegetation per day. And they're very aggressive. This means they'll chase away native, endangered birds. They can clear a five-acre pond so that other birds can't nest there.

What factors contributed to the public opposition?

They're big and beautiful and they're not afraid of people, so people can feed them and develop an emotional attachment. It's kind of comical and romantic to see a big male swan chasing everyone away so his mate can sit on the nest.

People connect with the romance of the mated pair of birds, and the little cygnets are so cute. They're charming.

A recent report in the United Kingdom concluded that a pilot culling program did not kill badgers humanely in many cases. What would you call an ethical cull?

It may be surprising to most people, but most animal ethicists consider the avoidance of suffering to be more important than the avoidance of death. For example, a sharpshooter immediately removing an unwitting animal is in most cases preferable to a protracted and disruptive capture, with the attendant fear and pain.

Any contact with wildlife should be minimal and humane. And there must be an evidence-based rationale for removal-not wishful thinking, but a sound plan where risks are anticipated and avoided, and the intended goal of disease reduction or achieving a sustainable population level highly likely and constantly monitored.

When bats are culled in South America to prevent rabies, for example, care must be taken to remove overabundant vampire bats, rather than insectivorous bats that typically do not interact with humans but play a positive role in reducing crop pests.

When West Nile virus first appeared in New York, the city sprayed pesticide at dusk, when those pesky mosquitoes that prefer humans come out. It turned out that the major transmitter of the virus was a daytime mosquito that feeds primarily on birds, so the spraying targeted the wrong species.

Wildlife managers have portrayed culling as a balancing mechanism for ecosystems. Some wildlife advocates have portrayed the practice as disruptive to ecosystems. Is this a debate about the definition of "natural"?

I think there are two strong strains here that get confused in our society. There are people who are really committed to wildlife conservation. That refers to maintaining the health of the most biodiverse habitats possible. And then there are animal rights advocates, who believe that every animal is ethically considerable and should have the right to live.

I think these two camps sometimes overlap in that wildlife conservationists want to find the most humane ways of managing ecosystems, but believe that the genie is out of the bottle-we live in an artificial set of habitats that must be managed or we will lose biodiversity. And then there are the animal rights people who say we'll deal with that as we come to it, but we have to find a way to make room for every animal to fit into the ark.

That's really not my perspective. If wildlife managers don't cull, then nature culls, and we will see animals starving [and] habitat types that used to be vibrant and beautiful consisting of highly reduced numbers of species. That's the specter that frightens wildlife conservationists, whereas I think those with the animal rights perspective feel that, ethically, we lose our souls if we cannot respect the divine spark in every individual animal.

The sad thing is I think both sides really love nature. But they have a very different view of looking at the future of nature on a planet that is overpopulated by humans.

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Killing Wildlife: The Pros and Cons of Culling Animals

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Last fall, the U.K.'s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs targeted badgers for culling-the selective killing of a species as a population control measure. Badgers reportedly transmit bovine tuberculosis, a disease with a profound economic impact on farmers whose cows test positive.

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A maelstrom of howling brown dust engulfs travelers through Isiolo. A few weeks earlier, 11 people were reported to have been killed around the north Kenyan town in the space of 10 days.

The pestilence of Covid is still in the dust-choked air, the ground is baked by drought. The murder and misery would seem biblical - if they were not so very modern.

They've already played out on the other side of the continent where climate change and overgrazing have hastened the spread of the Sahara desert south into Mali, Niger, and northern Nigeria.

Indeed the Sahel and the Maghreb have experienced widening desertification and, alongside it, frantic humanitarian crises and growing violence, especially from Islamic extremists.

In Kenya, the killings in the north do not (yet) have a neo-religious drive. But growing insecurity, in a country that's been traditionally seen as the stable diplomatic and humanitarian hub in the Horn of Africa torn by war, is being fueled by many of the same factors that have set the Sahel aflame.

The murder of dozens of people over the last two years, including two chiefs in Marsabit, 160 miles north of Isiolo town, and eight others in one attack last May not far from the regional capital, has prompted a ferocious crackdown by Kenya's police and other forces.

After one sweep through Marsabit county in June, police captured 200 machine guns, automatic rifles, and other weapons plus about 3,000 rounds of ammunition.

Just as in west Africa, Kenya's problems are being deepened by climate change.

Kenya is enduring its worst drought in 40 years, according to the government and UN. More than four million people are "food insecure," and 3.3 million can't get enough water to drink.

Across the Horn of Africa, that figure leaps to 11.6 million.

Ileret, on the northern shore of Lake Turkana, is famously parched. But the local nomadic pastoralists have managed to exist, even thrive, in harsh conditions for centuries. Their herds of goats and camels are periodically fattened by fresh pastures that emerge from the savannah when it, occasionally, rains.

For more than two years it just hasn't. Local officials in the Ileret district told CNN that around 85% of livestock here has perished. Surviving herds are being driven south in search of grazing.

Either way, those left behind have close to nothing to live on.

Akuagok is a widow who lives in a manyatta (collection of nomadic huts) about half an hour north of Ileret. It keeps some of the desert wind but little of the dust out of the lungs of her six children.

She survives on a meal every three days, which depends on whether she's able to sell charcoal in Ileret to buy unground wheat which her older kids grind by hand with a stone and then mix with water into chapattis

"I eat when I can. Mostly I don't eat every day. Sometimes when I sell charcoal I can eat maybe once or twice in three days," she says.

Her youngest, Arbolo, is two. He wails when he's laid down for a height measurement at an outreach mission from Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF) - but is listless when the circumference measurement of his upper arm shows up red on the MSF tape that measures the extent of malnutrition. The red means he's severely acutely malnourished - what most people would say is "starving."

Members of Akuagok's tribe, the Daasanach, crowded around her shouting their own stories of loss - loss of friends to illness perhaps caused by hunger, loss of animals, and how now, even when they make a very little cash, it's never enough to get by.

Here, in Ileret, the cost of food has trebled since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 this year. Ukraine used to produce 11.5% of the world's wheat for export and 17% of the world's export market of maize. Maize flour, known as ugali, is Kenya's staple. Across Kenya, the price of Ugali has at least doubled for most people.

Even if it rains in Ileret, Akuagok's life won't improve much. She has no animals left and food prices are unlikely to fall much. The United Nations' World Food Programme, which might step in, usually gets 40% of its wheat from Ukraine. The UN's Food and Agricultural Organization is appealing for $172 million in aid for the Horn of Africa to head off catastrophe. But as the war in Ukraine continues, that figure will surely rise.

Kenya has experienced bouts of lawlessness and land invasions before. But for many, even people used to seeing their own ethnic group violently take over grazing, or raid cattle, there's been a shift for the worse in Kenya.

Lemarti Lemar, a Samburu community leader, and well-known musician says he has lost "at least 30" cattle to the drought.

"People are just losing everything they own. If a guy loses 50 cattle that's a loss of $25,000 or more. But more dangerous is that the young moran (warriors) have no cattle left to look after. They get hold of illegal guns, they have nothing to do. They've stopped listening to the elders and some have become gangsters," he told CNN.

"We're losing control," he added.

Kenya faces general elections in the middle of next month. The process often provokes fears of instability in the country and, if the results are contested, the potential for political violence could escalate.

In the marginalized communities across the northern counties, urban-based politicians have paid lip service to the unfolding horrors. The government ended, and swiftly reinstated, subsidies on fuel in July. But as Kenya's population is largely centered in the center and south of the country, northern insecurity hasn't been a major election issue.

But that may be forced on the central government after the elections, as pastoralists seeking grazing now bring camels to browse on hedges in Isiolo.

Seeking pasture, they've invaded wildlife parks and sanctuaries, bringing them ever closer to the tourist attractions that are one of Kenya's biggest export earners.

No effort has been made to drive them out but the heavy toll their livestock takes on the landscape means it will struggle to recover in the next rains, if they ever come.

Past experience across Africa has shown that drought combined with overgrazing means when rains do fall, they wash away topsoil in vast quantities. Once that happens, there's little left but desert, after just a few years.

"Any time you get people who are hungry and without other options you've got a security situation. (In) Northern Kenya we're bordered by South Sudan, Ethiopia, and Somalia, all of which are still in the grip of conflict that spews small arms into this ecosystem, so you've got a lot of weapons up here and increasing hunger so, yeah, I'd say that's an increasing security concern," said Frank Pope, CEO of charity Save the Elephants, based in Kenya's Samburu National Reserve.

Pope's organization also works with elephants in Mali, West Africa, much of which, he now warns, was savannah not long ago but now sustains only "elephant, goats, and insurgents."

The combination of drought, soaring food and fuel prices due to a distant war, a burgeoning population, and civil wars on Kenya's doorstep is an incendiary mix.

And that may be bad news for humanitarian operations in neighboring Somalia, Ethiopia, and South Sudan which depend on Kenya's ports, and relative calm, as a base of operations and essential location for logistics.

And as the effects of climate change take hold in Kenya, as children face malnutrition and their mothers waste away, compounded by the desperate battle for nomads and pastoralists to survive, this once stable region is showing few signs that it can cope alone.

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This East African nation is known for stability. But drought and rising prices are fueling insecurity | CNN

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A maelstrom of howling brown dust engulfs travelers through Isiolo. A few weeks earlier, 11 people were reported to have been killed around the north Kenyan town in the space of 10 days. The pestilence of Covid is still in the dust-choked air, the ground is baked by drought.

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Why Kenya is turning to genetically modified crops to help with drought

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The government sees them as a way to lessen the impact of a lack of rain but some farmers are wary.

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Feed the world? Yes, but how, asks Alex Renton.

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Desertification has been described as " the greatest environmental challenge of our time " and climate change is making it worse.

While the term may bring to mind the windswept sand dunes of the Sahara or the vast salt pans of the Kalahari, it's an issue that reaches far beyond those living in and around the world's deserts, threatening the food security and livelihoods of more than two billion people.

The combined impact of climate change, land mismanagement and unsustainable freshwater use has seen the world's water-scarce regions increasingly degraded. This leaves their soils less able to support crops, livestock and wildlife.

Ahead of the report, Carbon Brief looks at what desertification is, the role that climate change plays and what impact it is having around the world.

Defining desertification

The UNCCD set out a definition of desertification in a treaty adopted by parties in 1994. It states that desertification means "land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas resulting from various factors, including climatic variations and human activities".

So, rather than desertification meaning the literal expansion of deserts, it is a catch-all term for land degradation in water-scarce parts of the world. This degradation includes the temporary or permanent decline in quality of soil, vegetation, water resources or wildlife, for example. It also includes the deterioration of the economic productivity of the land - such as the ability to farm the land for commercial or subsistence purposes.

Arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas are known collectively as "drylands". These are, unsurprisingly, areas that receive relatively little rain or snow each year. Technically, they are defined by the UNCCD as "areas other than polar and sub-polar regions, in which the ratio of annual precipitation to potential evapotranspiration falls within the range from 0.05 to 0.65".

In simple terms, this means the amount of rainfall the area receives is between 5-65% of the water it has the potential to lose through evaporation and transpiration from the land surface and vegetation, respectively (assuming sufficient moisture is available). Any area that receives more than this is referred to as "humid".

You can see this more clearly in the map below, where the world's drylands are identified by different grades of orange and red shading. Drylands encompass around 38% of the Earth's land area, covering much of North and southern Africa, western North America, Australia, the Middle East and Central Asia. Drylands are home to approximately 2.7 billion people (pdf) - 90% of whom live in developing countries.

Drylands are particularly susceptible to land degradation because of scarce and variable rainfall as well as poor soil fertility. But what does this degradation look like?

There are numerous ways in which the land can degrade. One of the main processes is erosion - the gradual breaking down and removal of rock and soil. This is typically through some force of nature - such as wind, rain and/or waves - but can be exacerbated by activities including ploughing, grazing or deforestation.

A loss of soil fertility is another form of degradation. This can be through a loss of nutrients, such as nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, or a decline in the amount of organic matter in the soil. For example, soil erosion by water causes global losses of as much as 42m tonnes of nitrogen and 26m tonnes of phosphorus every year. On farmed land, this inevitably needs to be replaced through fertilisers at significant cost. Soils can also suffer from salinisation - an increase in salt content - and acidification from overuse of fertilisers.

Then there are lots of other processes that are classed as degradation, including a loss or shift in vegetation type and cover, the compaction and hardening of the soil, an increase in wildfires, and a declining water table through excessive extraction of groundwater.

Mix of causes

According to a recent report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), "land degradation is almost always the result of multiple interacting causes".

The direct causes of desertification can be broadly divided between those relating to how the land is - or isn't - managed and those relating to the climate. The former includes factors such as deforestation, overgrazing of livestock, over-cultivation of crops and inappropriate irrigation; the latter includes natural fluctuations in climate and global warming as a result of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.

Then there are underlying causes as well, the IPBES report notes, including "economic, demographic, technological, institutional and cultural drivers".

Global average land temperatures from four datasets: CRUTEM4 (purple), NASA (red), NOAA (yellow) and Berkeley (grey) for 1970 to the present day, relative to a 1961-90 baseline. Also shown is global temperature from the HadCRUT4 record (blue). Chart by Carbon Brief using Highcharts.

"Climate change affects the frequency and magnitude of extreme events like droughts and floods. In areas that are naturally dry for example, a drought can have a huge impact on vegetation cover and productivity, particularly if that land is being used by high numbers of livestock. As plants die off due to lack of water, the soil becomes bare and is more easily eroded by wind, and by water when the rains do eventually come."

(Stringer is commenting here in her role at her home institution and not in her capacity as an IPCC author. This is the case with all the scientists quoted in this article.)

Both natural variability in climate and global warming can also affect rainfall patterns around the world, which can contribute to desertification. Rainfall has a cooling effect on the land surface, so a decline in rainfall can allow soils to dry out in the heat and become more prone to erosion. On the other hand, heavy rainfall can erode soil itself and cause waterlogging and subsidence.

"The main effect of climate change is through aridification, a progressive change of the climate towards a more arid state - whereby rainfall decreases in relation to the evaporative demand - as this directly affects water supply to vegetation and soils."

Climate change is also a contributing factor to wildfires, causing warmer - and sometimes drier - seasons that provide ideal conditions for fires to take hold. And a warmer climate can speed up the decomposition of organic carbon in soils, leaving them depleted and less able to retain water and nutrients.

As well as physical impacts on the landscape, climate change can impact on humans "because it reduces options for adaptation and livelihoods, and can drive people to overexploit the land", notes Stringer.

That overexploitation refers to the way that humans can mismanage land and cause it to degrade. Perhaps the most obvious way is through deforestation. Removing trees can upset the balance of nutrients in the soil and takes away the roots that helps bind the soil together, leaving it at risk of being eroded and washed or blown away.

Forests also play a significant role in the water cycle - particularly in the tropics. For example, research published in the 1970s showed that the Amazon rainforest generates around half of its own rainfall. This means that clearing the forests runs the risk of causing the local climate to dry, adding to the risk of desertification.

Food production is also a major driver of desertification. Growing demand for food can see cropland expand into forests and grasslands, and use of intensive farming methods to maximise yields. Overgrazing of livestock can strip rangelands of vegetation and nutrients.

This demand can often have wider political and socioeconomic drivers, notes Stringer:

"For example, demand for meat in Europe can drive the clearance of forest land in South America. So, while desertification is experienced in particular locations, its drivers are global and coming largely from the prevailing global political and economic system."

Local and global impacts

Of course, none of these drivers acts in isolation. Climate change interacts with the other human drivers of degradation, such as "unsustainable land management and agricultural expansion, in causing or worsening many of these desertification processes", says Dr Alisher Mirzabaev, a senior researcher at the University of Bonn and a coordinating lead author on the desertification chapter of the IPCC land report. He tells Carbon Brief:

"The [result is] declines in crop and livestock productivity, loss of biodiversity, increasing chances of wildfires in certain areas. Naturally, these will have negative impacts on food security and livelihoods, especially in developing countries."

Stringer says desertification often brings with it "a reduction in vegetation cover, so more bare ground, a lack of water, and soil salinisation in irrigated areas". This also can mean a loss of biodiversity and visible scarring of the landscape through erosion and the formation of gullies following heavy rainfall.

"Desertification has already contributed to the global loss of biodiversity", adds Joyce Kimutai from the Kenya Meteorological Department. Kimutai, who is also a lead author on the desertification chapter of the IPCC land report, tells Carbon Brief:

"Wildlife, especially large mammals, have limited capacities for timely adaptation to the coupled effects of climate change and desertification."

For example, a study (pdf) of the Cholistan Desert region of Pakistan found that the "flora and fauna have been thinning out gradually with the increasing severity of desertization". And a study of Mongolia found that "all species richness and diversity indicators declined significantly" because of grazing and increasing temperatures over the last two decades.

Degradation can also open the land up to invasive species and those less suitable for grazing livestock, says Michaelides:

"In many countries, desertification means a decline in soil fertility, a reduction in vegetation cover - especially grass cover - and more invasive shrub species. Practically speaking, the consequences of this are less available land for grazing, and less productive soils. Ecosystems start to look different as more drought tolerant shrubs invade what used to be grasslands and more bare soil is exposed."

This has "devastating consequences for food security, livelihoods and biodiversity", she explains:

"Where food security and livelihoods are intimately tied to the land, the consequences of desertification are particularly immediate. Examples are many countries in East Africa - especially Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia - where over half of the population are pastoralists relying on healthy grazing lands for their livelihoods. In Somalia alone, livestock contributes around 40% of the GDP [Gross Domestic Product]."

The UNCCD estimates that around 12m hectares of productive land are lost to desertification and drought each year. This is an area that could produce 20m tonnes of grain annually.

This has a considerable financial impact. In Niger, for example, the costs of degradation caused by land use change amounts to around 11% of its GDP. Similarly in Argentina, the "total loss of ecosystem services due to land-use/cover change, wetlands degradation and use of land degrading management practices on grazing lands and selected croplands" is equivalent to about 16% of its GDP.

Loss of livestock, reduced crop yields and declining food security are very visible human impacts of desertification, says Stringer:

"People cope with these kinds of challenges in various ways - by skipping meals to save food; buying what they can - which is difficult for those living in poverty with few other livelihood options - collecting wild foods, and in extreme conditions, often combined with other drivers, people move away from affected areas, abandoning the land."

People are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of desertification where they have "insecure property rights, where there are few economic supports for farmers, where there are high levels of poverty and inequality, and where governance is weak", Stringer adds.

Another impact of desertification is an increase in sand and dust storms. These natural phenomena - known variously as "sirocco", "haboob", "yellow dust", "white storms", and the "harmattan" - occur when strong winds blow loose sand and dirt from bare, dry soils. Research suggests that global annual dust emissions have increased by 25% between the late nineteenth century and today, with climate change and land use change the key drivers.

Dust storms in the Middle East, for example, "are becoming more frequent and intense in recent years", a recent study found. This has been driven by "long-term reductions in rainfall promot[ing] lower soil moisture and vegetative cover". However, Stringer adds that "further research is needed to establish the precise links between climate change, desertification and dust and sandstorms".

Dust storms can have a huge impact on human health, contributing to respiratory disorders such as asthma and pneumonia, cardiovascular issues and skin irritations, as well as polluting open water sources. They can also play havoc with infrastructure, reducing the effectiveness of solar panels and wind turbines by covering them in dust, and causing disruption to roads, railways and airports.

Climate feedback

Adding dust and sand into the atmosphere is also one of the ways that desertification itself can affect the climate, says Kimutai. Others include "changes in vegetation cover, surface albedo (reflectivity of the Earth's surface), and greenhouse gases fluxes", she adds.

Dust particles in the atmosphere can scatter incoming radiation from the sun, reducing warming locally at the surface, but increasing it in the air above. They can also affect the formation and lifetimes of clouds, potentially making rainfall less likely and thus reducing moisture in an already dry area.

Soils are a very important store of carbon. The top two metres of soil in global drylands, for example, store an estimated 646bn tonnes of carbon - approximately 32% of the carbon held in all the world's soils.

Research shows that the moisture content of the soil is the main influence on the capacity for dryland soils to "mineralise" carbon. This is the process, also known as "soil respiration", where microbes break down the organic carbon in the soil and convert it to CO2. This process also makes nutrients in the soil available for plants to use as they grow.

Soil respiration indicates the soil's ability to sustain plant growth. And typically, respiration declines with decreasing soil moisture to a point where microbial activity effectively stops. While this reduces the CO2 the microbes release, it also inhibits plant growth, which means the vegetation is taking up less CO2 from the atmosphere through photosynthesis. Overall, dry soils are more likely to be net emitters of CO2.

So as soils become more arid, they will tend to be less able to sequester carbon from the atmosphere, and thus will contribute to climate change. Other forms of degradation also generally release CO2 into the atmosphere, such as deforestation, overgrazing - by stripping the land of vegetation - and wildfires.

Mapping troubles

"Most dryland environments around the world are being affected by desertification to some extent," says Michaelides.

But coming up with a robust global estimate for desertification is not straightforward, explains Kimutai:

"Current estimates of the extent and severity of desertification vary greatly due to missing and/or unreliable information. The multiplicity and complexity of the processes of desertification make its quantification even more difficult. Studies have used different methods based on different definitions."

And identifying desertification is made harder because it tends to emerge relatively slowly, adds Michaelides:

"At the start of the process, desertification may be hard to detect, and because it's slow it may take decades to realise that a place is changing. By the time it is detected, it may be hard to halt or reverse."

Desertification across the Earth's land surface was first mapped in a study published in the journal Economic Geography in 1977. It noted that: "For much of the world, there is little good information on the extent of desertification in individual countries". The map - shown below - graded areas of desertification as "slight", "moderate", "severe" or "very severe" based on a combination of "published information, personal experience, and consultation with colleagues".

The GLASOD map, shown below, details the extent and degree of land degradation across the world. It categorised the degradation into chemical (red shading), wind (yellow), physical (purple) or water (blue).

While GLASOD was also used for the second WAD, published in 1997, the map came under criticism for a lack of consistency and reproducibility. Subsequent datasets, such as the " Global Assessment of Land Degradation and Improvement" (GLADA), have benefitted from the addition of satellite data.

Nevertheless, by the time the third WAD - produced by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission - came around two decades later, the authors "decided to take a different path". As the report puts it:

"Land degradation cannot be globally mapped by a single indicator or through any arithmetic or modelled combination of variables. A single global map of land degradation cannot satisfy all views or needs."

Instead of a single metric, the atlas considers a set of "14 variables often associated with land degradation", such as aridity, livestock density, tree loss and decreasing land productivity.

As such, the map below - taken from the Atlas - does not show land degradation itself, but the "convergence of evidence" of where these variables coincide. The parts of the world with the most potential issues (shown by orange and red shading) - such as India, Pakistan, Zimbabwe and Mexico - are thus identified as particularly at risk from degradation.

The future

As desertification cannot be characterised by a single metric, it is also tricky to make projections for how rates of degradation could change in the future.

In addition, there are numerous socio-economic drivers that will contribute. For example, the number of people directly affected by desertification is likely to increase purely because of population growth. The population living in drylands across the world is projected to increase by 43% to four billion by 2050.

The impact of climate change on aridity is also complicated. A warmer climate is generally more able to evaporate moisture from the land surface - potentially increasing dryness in combination with hotter temperatures.

However, climate change will also affect rainfall patterns, and a warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapour, potentially increasing both average and heavy rainfall in some areas.

There is also a conceptual question of distinguishing long-term changes in the dryness of an area with the relatively short-term nature of droughts.

In general, the global area of drylands is expected to expand as the climate warms. Projections under the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 emissions scenarios suggest drylands will increase by 11% and 23%, respectively, compared to 1961-90. This would mean drylands could make up either 50% or 56%, respectively, of the Earth's land surface by the end of this century, up from around 38% today.

This expansion of arid regions will occur principally "over southwest North America, the northern fringe of Africa, southern Africa, and Australia", another study says, while "major expansions of semiarid regions will occur over the north side of the Mediterranean, southern Africa, and North and South America".

Research also shows that climate change is already increasing both the likelihood and severity of droughts around the world. This trend is likely to continue. For example, one study, using the intermediate emissions scenario "RCP4.5", projects "large increases (up to 50%-200% in a relative sense) in frequency for future moderate and severe drought over most of the Americas, Europe, southern Africa, and Australia".

Another study notes that climate model simulations "suggest severe and widespread droughts in the next 30-90 years over many land areas resulting from either decreased precipitation and/or increased evaporation".

However, it should be noted that not all drylands are expected to get more arid with climate change. The map below, for example, shows the projected change for a measure of aridity (defined as the ratio of rainfall to potential evapotranspiration, PET) by 2100 under climate model simulations for RCP8.5. The areas shaded red are those expected to become drier - because PET will increase more than rainfall - while those in green are expected to become wetter. The latter includes much of the Sahel and East Africa, as well as India and parts of northern and western China.

Climate model simulations also suggest that rainfall, when it does occur, will be more intense for almost the entire world, potentially increasing the risks of soil erosion. Projections indicate that most of the world will see a 16-24% increase in heavy precipitation intensity by 2100.

Solutions

Limiting global warming is therefore one of the key ways to help put a break on desertification in future, but what other solutions exist?

The UN has designated the decade from January 2010 to December 2020 as the "United Nations decade for deserts and the fight against desertification". The decade was to be an "opportunity to make critical changes to secure the long-term ability of drylands to provide value for humanity's well being".

What is very clear is that prevention is better - and much cheaper - than cure. "Once desertification has occurred it is very challenging to reverse", says Michaelides. This is because once the "cascade of degradation processes start, they're hard to interrupt or halt".

Stopping desertification before it starts requires measures to "protect against soil erosion, to prevent vegetation loss, to prevent overgrazing or land mismanagement", she explains:

"All these things require concerted efforts and policies from communities and governments to manage land and water resources at large scales. Even small scale land mismanagement can lead to degradation at larger scales, so the problem is quite complex and hard to manage."

At the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro in 2012, parties agreed to "strive to achieve a land-degradation neutral world in the context of sustainable development". This concept of " land degradation neutrality" (LDN) was subsequently taken up by the UNCCD and also formally adopted as Target 15.3 of the Sustainable Development Goals by the UN General Assembly in 2015.

The idea of LDN, explained in detail in the video below, is a hierarchy of responses: first to avoid land degradation, second to minimise it where it does occur, and thirdly to offset any new degradation by restoring and rehabilitating land elsewhere. The outcome being that overall degradation comes into balance - where any new degradation is compensated with reversal of previous degradation.

"Sustainable land management" (SLM) is key to achieving the LDN target, says Dr Mariam Akhtar-Schuster, co-chair of the UNCCD science-policy interface and a review editor for the desertification chapter of the IPCC land report. She tells Carbon Brief:

"Sustainable land management practices, which are based on the local socio-economic and ecological condition of an area, help to avoid desertification in the first place but also to reduce ongoing degradation processes."

SLM essentially means maximising the economic and social benefits of the land while also maintaining and enhancing its productivity and environmental functions. This can comprise a whole range of techniques, such as rotational grazing of livestock, boosting soil nutrients by leaving crop residues on the land after harvest, trapping sediment and nutrients that would otherwise be lost through erosion, and planting fast-growing trees to provide shelter from the wind.

But these measures can't just be applied anywhere, notes Akhtar-Schuster:

"Because SLM has to be adapted to local circumstances there is no such thing as a one size fits all toolkit to avoid or reduce desertification. However, all these locally adapted tools will have the best effects if they are embedded in an integrated national land use planning system."

Stringer agrees that there's "no silver bullet" to preventing and reversing desertification. And, it's not always the same people who invest in SLM who benefit from it, she explains:

"An example here would be land users upstream in a catchment reforesting an area and reducing soil erosion into water bodies. For those people living downstream this reduces flood risk as there is less sedimentation and could also deliver improved water quality."

However, there is also a fairness issue if the land users upstream are paying for the new trees and those downstream are receiving the benefits at no cost, Stringer says:

"Solutions therefore need to identify who 'wins' and who 'loses out' and should incorporate strategies that compensate or minimise inequities."

"Everyone forgets that last part about equity and fairness," she adds. The other aspect that has also been overlooked historically is getting community buy-in on proposed solutions, says Stringer.

Research shows that using traditional knowledge can be particularly beneficial for tackling land degradation. Not least because communities living in drylands have done so successfully for generations, despite the tricky environmental conditions.

This idea is increasingly being taken on board, says Stringer - a response to "top-down interventions" that have proved "ineffective" because of a lack of community involvement.

Update: This article was updated on 03/04/2020 to clarify that the land-ocean warming contrast is a result of differences in changes in lapse rate, rather than specific heat capacity.

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Explainer: Desertification and the role of climate change

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Desertification has been described as the "the greatest environmental challenge of our time" and climate change is making it worse.

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Desertification is defined as a process of land degradation in arid, semi-arid and sub-humid areas due to various factors including climatic variations and human activities. Or, to put it in another way, desertification results in persistent degradation of dryland and fragile ecosystems due to man-made activities and variations in climate. Desertification, in short, is when land that was originally of another type of biome turns into a desert biome because of changes of all sorts. A huge issue that many countries have is the fact that there are large pockets of land that are going through a process that is known as desertification.

Overgrazing is the major cause of desertification worldwide. Other factors that cause desertification include urbanization, climate change, overdrafting of groundwater, deforestation, natural disasters and tillage practices in agriculture that place soils more vulnerable to wind. Desertification affects topsoil, groundwater reserves, surface runoff, human, animal and plant populations. Water scarcity in drylands limits the production of wood, crops, forage and other services that ecosystems provide to our community.

We already have the statistics for the future: the growth percentages of pollution, overpopulation, desertification. The future is already in place.
- Gunther Grass

According to UNESCO, one third of world's land surface is threatened by desertification and across the world it affects livelihood of millions of people who depend on the benefits of ecosystems that drylands provides. Desertification is another major environmental concern and a major barrier to meeting human basic needs in drylands and are being constantly threatened by increases in human pressures and climatic variability. In this article, we're going to give you an idea as to what are the causes of desertification, the effects that desertification has, and what we can do in order to deal with the problem at hand. Let's take a closer look at all of these topics.

According to Wikipedia,
"Desertification is a type of land degradation in which a relatively dry land region becomes increasingly arid, typically losing its bodies of water as well as vegetation and wildlife. It is caused by a variety of factors, such as climate change and human activities. Desertification is a significant global ecological and environmental problem."
Causes of Desertification

Urbanization and other types of land development. As mentioned above, development can cause people to go through and kill the plant life. It can also cause issues with the soil due to chemicals and other things that may harm the ground. As areas become more urbanized, there are less places for plants to grow, thus causing desertification.

Effects of Desertification

Farming becomes next to impossible. If an area becomes a desert, then it's almost impossible to grow substantial crops there without special technologies. This can cost a lot of money to try and do, so many farmers will have to sell their land and leave the desert areas.

Hunger: Without farms in these areas, the food that those farms produce will become much scarcer, and the people who live in those local areas will be a lot more likely to try and deal with hunger problems. Animals will also go hungry, which will cause even more of a food shortage.

Flooding: Without the plant life in an area, flooding is a lot more eminent. Not all deserts are dry; those that are wet could experience a lot of flooding because there is nothing to stop the water from gathering and going all over the place. Flooding can also negatively affect the water supply, which we will discuss next.

Poor Water Quality: If an area becomes a desert, the water quality is going to become a lot worse than it would have been otherwise. This is because the plant life plays a significant role in keeping the water clean and clear; without its presence, it becomes a lot more difficult for you to be able to do that.

Poverty: All of the issues that we've talked about above (related to the problem of desertification) can lead to poverty if it is not kept in check. Without food and water, it becomes harder for people to thrive, and they take a lot of time to try and get the things that they need.

Solutions for Desertification

Policy Changes Related to How People can Farm. In countries where policy change will actually be enforced on those in the country, policy change related to how often people can farm and how much they can farm on certain areas could be put into place to help reduce the problems that are often associated with farming and desertification.

Policy Changes to Other Types of Land Use. If people are using land to get natural resources or they are developing it for people to live on, then the policies that govern them should be ones that will help the land to thrive instead of allowing them to harm the land further. The policy changes could be sweeping or they could be depending on the type of land use at hand.

Technology Advances. In some cases, it's difficult to try and prevent desertification from happening. In those cases, there needs to be research and advancements in technology that push the limits of what we currently know. Advancements could help us find more ways to prevent the issue from becoming epidemic.

Putting Together Rehabilitation Efforts. There are some ways that we can go back and rehabilitate the land that we've already pushed into desertification; it just takes some investment of time and money. By putting these together, we can prevent the issue from becoming even more widespread in the areas that have already been affected.

Desertification is a huge problem that needs to be addressed accordingly, and if we take the time to do it now, we can prevent other problems from happening with it in the future. By taking that critical look at desertification, we have the tools that we need in order to get through the processes effectively.

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Causes, Effects and Solutions of Desertification - Conserve Energy Future

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What is Desertification? Desertification is defined as a process of land degradation in arid, semi-arid and sub-humid areas due to various factors including climatic variations and human activities. Or, to put it in another way, desertification results in persistent degradation of dryland and fragile ecosystems due to man-made activities and variations in climate.

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Kenya is again under siege by a swarm of desert locusts that are threatening farmers' crops and pastures.

The UN Food and Agriculture organisation says locusts are swarming across several countries in the region and 3.5 million people could be impacted by May.

"They'll finish (everything) look at this corn, if you look at it, it means that it only has today and tomorrow, the day after that there will be nothing left," said farmer Jane Gatumwa.

"We used to have some weeds that we used to feed our cattle but nothing is left now, they (the locusts) finished everything, it's all dried up. "

Last year Kenya faced its worst locust invasion in 70 years that threatened the food security of millions of people.

"When we look at the magnitude of the problem, it's much bigger than an outbreak and it's an upsurge," said Cyril Ferrand, FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) East Africa resilience team leader.

"So that's really the second biggest intermediate level of infestation, that is spreading across the entire region from Sudan to Somalia to Kenya."

The locusts are young now but will mature, and reproduce in the coming months.

"As Kenya is heading into the rainy season we've got immature swarms now. If any of those little swarms do escape us and get into potential breeding areas, that's re-infestation," said Batian Craig, director of the security company 51 Degrees.

"So it's important that we deal with every single one. But I suppose one of the biggest things is that we don't want a re-infestation. "

But Kenya is beating back the swarm this year along with UN efforts, the government has established eight control bases.

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Kenya fights back fresh wave of desert locusts | Africanews

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Kenya is again under siege by a swarm of desert locusts that are threatening farmers' crops and pastures. The UN Food and Agriculture organisation says locusts are swarming across several countries in the region and 3.5 million people could be impacted by May.

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Kenya has lost nearly half its forests - time for the young to act

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The world is facing a planetary emergency; and Africa is particularly vulnerable.

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The Beginner's Guide to Starting to Code

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Access Google Drive with a Google account (for personal use) or Google Workspace account (for business use).

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Access Google Drive with a Google account (for personal use) or Google Workspace account (for business use).

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Access Google Drive with a Google account (for personal use) or Google Workspace account (for business use).

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Friday Playlist: You Can Dance! - Rookie

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Camping Tips for Your Next Trip 5 Camping Essentials for the Complete Novice Preparing for rain...

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I'm of the opinion that any book that gets my tween reading is a good enough book for me - and for the most part that ethos has served me well. It's also led me to some interesting places - most recently, to the long, tall, puzzling wall of manga in our local library.

Manga is not something I ever dabbled in, other than a vague awareness, decades ago, of Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z. But today, in my daughter's fifth grade class, manga is a thing. And now it's a thing I've had to figure out.

Here's what I've learned so far.

What it is. Manga refers to a wide variety of Japanese graphic novels. And they are definitely not all the same.

What it isn't. Manga and anime are two different things - though they are visually similar and some of the more popular manga series have become anime (see: Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z). Generally speaking, manga refers to graphic novels and anything printed, while anime refers to television or movies.

How you say it. It's not manga, like some feminine version of mango. It's more like mahn-gah.

It's backwards. A great deal of the manga in the U.S. still reads as the original Japanese - right to left. It can take a bit of getting used to.

There are five main types of manga. Shonen, shojo, seinen, josei, and kodomomuke - each of which is based, broadly, on gender and age.

And there are lots of sub-genres. I had assumed manga was like most of the comics I've encountered - comprised of superheroes, antiheroes, and a lot of action, and aimed primarily at boys. While that's true of some of the most famous manga, some titles are sweet, some are goofy, some are romance-based, some romance-based titles are between boys, some are between girls - and, lo and behold, there's a whole subgenre just about cooking, recipes included.

Shonen manga is aimed at tween and teen boys. Shonen manga is by far the most popular and prevalent type - and it's enjoyed by boys and girls alike. Typically, it features boy protagonists who either a) fight or b) are funny or c) both. Key titles include by Masashi Kishimoto, Dragon Ball by Akira Toriyama, by Tite Kubo, by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata, and Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa.

Shoujo manga is aimed at tween and teen girls. Sailor Moon by Naoko Takeuchi, with its schoolgirls-turned-superheroes, is likely the most famous shoujo series. While fantasy and sheroes exist, the popular romance-centered stories lean heavily on stereotypically girly tropes like the Prince Charming, the bad boy, and love triangles. Top titles include Fruits Basket by Natsuki Takaya, Ouran High School Host Club by Bisco Hatori, and by Yoshiki Nakamura.

manga is for younger children. These are sweet and simplistic tales. by Fujiko F. Fujio is a classic. And we like the more recent Chi's Sweet Home by Konami Kanata, about a lost cat (not least because it's published left to right).

Manga isn't just for kids. The last two types - seinen, aimed at young men, and josei, aimed at young women, are decidedly more mature (read: more violent and sexual, including some rated-R material). Famous seinen include Ghost in the Shell by Shirow Masamune and by Katsuhiro Otomo, while famous josei include by Yun Kouga and Paradise Kiss by Ai Yazawa.

When in doubt, Google. At first glance, it can be hard to tell shonen from seinen and shoujo from josei, although overall illustration style can be one indicator. My daughter very specifically asked me for a manga series called by Saburouta, which I learned, after the fact, was a bit more mature than I would normally allow my 10-year-old. Unless you are already well-versed in manga, it helps to Google the title to be sure it's in the right age demo.

It's all about style. When I asked my daughter what she liked so much about manga, it boiled down to one thing: style. Those eyes. That hair. Those cute little animals. (She's less interested in shonen titles, but the element of style is definitely there, too.) Now, we check out as many how-to-draw books as we do manga titles themselves.

Christopher Hart has a great drawing series for the new-to-manga:

And more sophisticated shoujo tastes might like Camilla d'Errico's Pop Manga series.

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12 Things Parents and Educators Should Know About Manga | Brightly

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I'm of the opinion that any book that gets my tween reading is a good enough book for me - and for the most part that ethos has served me well. It's also led me to some interesting places - most recently, to the long, tall, puzzling wall of manga in our local library.

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I love love love a slow morning!! I am typically a morning person and my weekday mornings always start on 100. My brain is sharpest in the morning and my energy highest and because of that, I ensure that I make the most of my mornings. However on the weekends, I soak into the slowest and most sluggish of mornings. I wake up as late as I feel like. I stay in bed hours after waking. I then drag my feet and make something yummy for myself. I love a breakfast spread that has both sweet and savory picks. For my sweet pick, I often lean toward crepes or a loaf cake; and lately, I have really been into these yummy raisin breakfast scones.

These yellow breakfast scones are pretty common here in Kenya. They typically don't have raisins, but I love mine with some. Because the Kenyan breakfast typically involves tea, these scones make for the perfect accompaniment. These breakfast scones may be similar to what Americans call dinner rolls.

I hope you love this one!

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Obviously I was going to start this blog by saying I. LOVE. FISH. We have walked this journey since 2014 and those of you who have been part of my tribe since then know in my heart of heart, the one meat I can comfortably eat every day for the rest of my life is fish. The variety is plenty. Each different fish tastes and feels different and I love love love that there are a billion ways to cook it too.

Tilapia has always been most common in this country. It has gained popularity in other countries as well over the recent years (which I noticed on twitter that they call Tilapia a lab animal and one that does not exist in real life (???) but I also understand in first world countries so much Genetic Modification happens such that one can live a full life without seeing or tasting the real thing). It is pretty affordable, super tasty and extremely flavorful. Today's recipe is a take on one I made in 2016 - you can check it out here - with today spinning my original recipe and upgrading it very slightly, but in a manner that your palate will love!

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Weekends at home have often started with hearty breakfasts. It would be anything really but it would always be super special. I specifically love it when mom makes drop scones. I swear no one does it better than her!! My elder sister does make the best crepes. Well I do too, but I prefer sleeping till 11 a.m. and not have to cook too early in the morning lol. We are now grown and we all participate in the breakfast process, we all contribute in different ways. Think kebabs or samosas or pancakes or loaf cakes... it could be anything. And in my home, I now also make sure that weekend breakfasts are just as yummy. If you follow me on Twitter, you know crepes often feature. And upon your request, today we are going to do the foundational crepe recipe which I hope you will really enjoy!

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Today is June 14th. As I am writing this blogpost, a lemon cake is baking. It is a warm mid-morning. I am calm. I am happy. I am content. The sun is making it's way through the blinds and a gentle breeze is wafting in. My home smells fantastic. I have been on a creative high and my spirit is still. On this very day, and at this very very moment, I am happy, present and grounded. My 2022 has not been a pleasant year, and whenever I can catch a moment of joy, I grasp it and I let my spirit marinate in it.

I hope on the day I post this recipe that I will be in an even calmer, more grounded and much happier space. I hope joy finds me and chooses me every day. I also hope for you - on the day I *finally* post this recipe, that joy is cozily nested in your heart. I hope you find peace in life's simple moments. I hope you constantly re-discover yourself and fearlessly choose yourself.

And with that, let us get into today's beauty of a recipe.

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Life is super fast paced, more so now that we are adults and it has gotten real! I have made a conscious choice to stop and smell the roses. It is very easy to get swept by the undercurrent of life. And if one does not deliberately stop and just be, the present business can consume you. Lately I have been reminiscing about my career, especially now that I am nearly reaching my 8th anniversary! Who would have thought that this girl would build a monster of a brand off of her name! Who would have thought I would keep this going for nearly a decade? Who would have thought simple ideas would turn into laughter on your dinner tables? Who would have thought! It has been quite the journey and I am deeply appreciative of every win, every stress point, every steep learning curve, every glorious collaboration and certainly, for every one of you.

Today's recipe - my ginger sweet corn fried rice - is super simple. This particular one is a better rendition to this one I made and posted in August of 2014. I have no idea why the images are broken on that post, but it is completely worth it that I tweaked it a little bit and posted it once more for you to try out.

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There is nothing that a great plate of pork cannot fix!! I love love love the taste and flavor of pork and it is one of my top three favorite meats. While it is one of the meats I really love, for some reason I do not consume it as often as I would prefer. I would love to change that this year and have more pork. I have done splendid pork recipes in the past; such as my red wine braised pork ribs and mango habanero sauce basted pork choma and today I would love us to get into this beauty that is my thyme & pineapple marinated pork.

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If there is a recipe that has been so highly requested, it has been how to make Instant noodles a bit more exciting to have. Many people turn their noses up and act snobbish towards instant noodles, but we cannot deny that they make such a convenient lazy meal for a huge huge majority. Very many noodle varieties exist that- admittedly- taste better, however we still appreciate our instant noodles.

For today, I will show you 3 extremely simple and basic ways you can upgrade your noodles. The recipe are low fuss, low effort but high on flavor. Simple does not always mean boring, and this is one blogpost ( and video) with three perfect recipes that showcase just that!

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I live for easy and delicious platefuls. Some may take longer than most - understandibly - but most of the time, what I love is the reward of delicious food. Be it lunch or supper, I just want my tongue to rejoice! I love me anything chicken and we have done some amazing chicken recipes in the past. The most popular recipe last year was my ginger garlic chicken thigh bake. I mean take a look at this glorious recipe!!! It seems like we are on a amazing-chicken-recipe streak and as I was chowing this down, I hoped that you guys would love it as much as I did and hope to see this recipe in the top 10 at the end of this year when we do our count down.

My sticky spicy orange chicken is unforgettable!

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I love love love a slow morning!! I am typically a morning person and my weekday mornings always start on 100. My brain is sharpest in the morning and my energy highest and because of that, I ensure that I make the most of my mornings.

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Drought, desertification, urban sprawl and uncontrolled grazing are harming the land that provides us with food on our plates.

Yet UN Environment is working with partners to turn the tables, to prevent land degradation and restore degraded land back to full health.

These projects on sustainable land management are worth $70.5 million and take place across the globe.

In Georgia for example, 60% of agricultural land is rated by the country as being of low or middle quality for producing food, while 35% is degraded.

UN Environment is therefore helping to train farmers, tighten up legislation and run demonstration projects there, showing how good soil quality and incomes can go hand in hand.

It is expected that laws will be amended to better protect soil quality, while best practices for windbreak and pasture management will be shared on the ground.

As a result, this is expected to boost ecosystem health and reduce vulnerability to climate change, while farmers will benefit from improved soil quality. Women play a critical role in farming and are at greater risk of falling into extreme poverty, so will greatly benefit from the project.

Read more on this work - which is funded through the Global Environment Facility - here. Discover statistics on the environmental challenges and solutions related to the Sustainable Development Goals here. Learn more about the causes and solutions to land degradation in the sixth Global Environment Outlook for the pan-European region here.

Boost your knowledge on topical environmental issues and how they affect our daily lives!

UN Environment in Europe brings you #FridayFacts showing how our work and that of others concretely helps moves towards sustainable societies.

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#FridayFact: Every minute, we lose 23 hectares of arable land worldwide to drought and desertification

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Drought, desertification, urban sprawl and uncontrolled grazing are harming the land that provides us with food on our plates. Yet UN Environment is working with partners to turn the tables, to prevent land degradation and restore degraded land back to full health. These projects on sustainable land management are worth $70.5 million and take place across the globe.

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The Haunting Effects of Going Days Without Sleep

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The Haunting Effects of Going Days Without Sleep

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The Haunting Effects Of Going Days Without Sleep

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Decades ago, Randy Gardner stayed awake for 11 days. He broke a record in the process, but the teenage stunt has come back to haunt him. At 71, he offers wisdom about staying up past your bedtime.

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Learning a new skill can be easy - if you have the right mindset

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Listen to this episode from Life Kit on Spotify. Mastering a new hobby, like bowling or baking, can be a frustrating process. But experts say it doesn't have to be that way. If you set yourself up for success at the start and allow yourself to make mistakes - you can improve your chances of sticking with it.

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What DNA kits leave out: race, ancestry and ‘scientific sankofa’

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How Becoming A Refugee Changes You : Consider This from NPR

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Inside Ukraine, millions of people have been displaced, with millions more living in increasingly dire conditions. In the city of Maruipol, hundreds of thousands of civilians remain trapped - with dwindling supplies of food and water and no electricity. Mariupol has been bombarded by the Russians for weeks now.

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Arts therapies appear to ease a host of brain disorders from Parkinson's to PTSD. But these treatments that rely on music, poetry or visual arts haven't been backed by rigorous scientific testing. Now, artists and brain scientists have launched a program to change that. NPR's brain correspondent Jon Hamilton tells us about an initiative called the NeuroArts Blueprint.
This episode was produced by Rebecca Ramirez, edited by Stephanie O'Neill and fact-checked by Katherine Sypher.

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Arts therapies appear to ease a host of brain disorders from Parkinson's to PTSD. But these treatments that rely on music, poetry or visual arts haven't been backed by rigorous scientific testing. Now, artists and brain scientists have launched a program to change that.

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What Will it Take to Save the Savanna Elephant?

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What Will it Take to Save the Savanna Elephant?

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As the CEO of WildlifeDirect, Paula Kahumbu has dedicated her life to saving space for wildlife to thrive in Africa and building healthy relationships between humans and wild elephants. Paula got her start in wildlife conservation by measuring Kenya's stockpile of elephant tusks confiscated from poachers-12 tons in all. And it turns out poachers aren't the only threat to this endangered species.

Listen on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, and Amazon Music.

TRANSCRIPT

PAULA KAHUMBU (ELEPHANT EXPERT): The way that these elephants use this landscape is something that has been learned and passed on from generation to generation.

BRIAN GUTIERREZ (HOST): This is Paula Kahumbu, National Geographic Explorer and elephant expert on our new documentary series, Secrets of the Elephants.

KAHUMBU: Once the first elephants figured out how to navigate this incredibly treacherous terrain, they taught the others and they taught the others, and they've continued to use this pathway.

GUTIERREZ: Paula has followed elephants on these pathways for years now. In this second episode in our three-part series, she'll share with us what she's learned.

I'm Brian Gutierrez and you're listening to Overheard, a show where we eavesdrop on the wild conversations we have here at Nat Geo and follow them to the edges of our big, weird, beautiful world.

This week: Paula Kahumbu will take us inside the world of elephants.

KAHUMBU: For generations. They'll continue doing the same things as part of their culture. That's how they transmit knowledge. It's what makes them so successful as a species.

GUTIERREZ: But that culture, knowledge, and the species itself is in danger of extinction, and they need our help to survive.

We'll be right back after the break.

Fuel your curiosity with a free one-month trial subscription to National Geographic Premium. You'll have unlimited access on any device, anywhere, ad-free with our app that lets you download stories to read offline. Explore every page ever published with a century of digital archives at your fingertips.

Check it all out for free at natgeo.com/exploremore.

KAHUMBU: My name is Paula Kahumbu. I'm the CEO of Wildlife Direct and I'm an elephant expert. I try to save elephants, really.

GUTIERREZ: Do you remember the first elephant that you could recognize by name?

KAHUMBU: Oh, gosh. No. So many elephants in Kenya are known by name. Thousands of them. I can tell you which elephant I fell in love with.

GUTIERREZ: Tell me that story.

KAHUMBU: So his name was Tim.

GUTIERREZ: OK.

KAHUMBU: Tim was a super tusker. And I had my board meeting, and they had told the elephant researchers, "If you see Tim, you know, please let us know. I'd love the board to meet this incredible elephant."

GUTIERREZ: Right.

KAHUMBU: I got the call in the middle of the meeting, and they said, "Tim is in the elephant camp. You've got to come now." So we all dropped what we were doing, middle of a board meeting, jumped in our safari cars, went racing off in these jeeps in the dust to find Tim.

And when we got to this camp, there were these beautiful, tall palm trees. And all you could see was the palm tree kind of shaking a little bit. And then he walked out from the trees. And as he walked out, we noticed he was limping.

He had an injury on his back-left thigh. He had actually been speared. And my board, in that moment realized that Tim probably would die unless we took action. And we made a commitment there and then, we're going to save Tim. And this started-my whole board meeting was overturned with this now new imperative, which is "we've got to save Tim."

Tim was an elephant that Kenyans didn't even know existed. Because when you have such a magnificent animal, you don't want people to know he exists because poachers might come and kill him.

We decided we'd do the opposite. We're going to make this elephant so famous. We're going to save him, we're going to rescue him, we're going to treat him. We're going to put a radio collar on him. We're going to have a 24/7 security group following him. And we did all that. So I fell in love with Tim because he was the elephant who turned the hearts and minds of Kenyans. Everybody started coming to Amboseli to meet Tim. It was amazing. Really amazing.

GUTIERREZ: What happened with the spear injury?

KAHUMBU: He got treated and we were able to put a radio collar on him so it could always find him. He did a lot of surprising things. He would take his family of bulls-he did have this group of bulls and there were all his relatives. And we knew this because the elephants are named by letters of the alphabet which are related to their families. So all the Ts are one family of elephants.

GUTIERREZ: So you have Tim.

KAHUMBU: Tolstoy.

GUTIERREZ: Tolstoy.

KAHUMBU: Townsend.

GUTIERREZ: Townsend. OK.

KAHUMBU: There were just all these names that they came up with all beginning with "T" and they were all together.

GUTIERREZ: And did they all have those huge tusks? Are they all super tuskers?

KAHUMBU: Amazingly, yes. They had-they weren't just big tusks. There was one long tusk and one slightly shorter curved tusks. You could see that there was a gene.

GUTIERREZ: They all had that pattern.

KAHUMBU: They all had the same pattern. One day when we were filming them, they all went to sleep. And I was watching them as we were filming them. I told my crew, "Film them now, now, now. They're all going to go to sleep." And you'd think they'd lay down like a human being would, get down on your knees then-no. They just fall over, boof, on the ground.

GUTIERREZ: Really?

KAHUMBU: Yeah

GUTIERREZ: Like a building.

KAHUMBU: They literally-the back legs buckle and they just collapse, thosh, onto the ground and so Tim and his whole family, there were eight big bulls, and they were just going down like dominos- dosh, dosh, dosh.

And Tim was the last one to go down. All these ellies snoring in front of us for two hours. And we took photos and sent it to the elephant researchers who were very alarmed and they were like, "There's something wrong. These elephants, they're sick, they've been poisoned. Something terrible is happening." And I was like, "No, they're just having a nap."

GUTIERREZ: Sure.

KAHUMBU: But they let us stay literally within a few feet of them as they slept right in front of us. Tim, whenever we saw him, he would do something that would make us think, wow, this story will help us to win the hearts and minds of people.

And sadly, he did pass away a few years later, but from natural causes. So I'm really grateful that he lived a happy and productive life. I think there are lots of little Tim's out there.

GUTIERREZ: I think for people who don't know anything about elephants, we should clarify: there are three species, right?

KAHUMBU: Absolutely. Yes. There's the African savanna Elephant, which everyone knows about. The big giants of the African savannas, Loxodonta africana. And then you have the African forest elephant, the Loxadona cyclotus, which was only recognized as a separate species a few years ago. And then you have the Asian elephant, Elephas maximus, which is a totally different type of animal. They're all amazing. All of them are incredible.

GUTIERREZ: And all these species of elephants are endangered.

KAHUMBU: Everywhere we went to, it was heartbreaking to see how much peril they're all in. African savanna elephants are losing space. There's a huge amount of human-elephant conflict. African forest elephants, they are so terrorized by humans that if they see you, they will just try to kill you. We had camera traps that were not just damaged-they were literally smashed to smithereens by elephants.

GUTIERREZ: Because it smells like people?

KAHUMBU: Yeah. In one case, they literally pulled up a whole tree and dragged it for hundreds of meters. And you can see from the camera trap because the camera footage was still there. You could see how the elephant sensed it, came close to it, smelled it with his trunk, put his eyeball right up against the camera. It's like, This is the thing, and then just whacked it with his tusk.

GUTIERREZ: Wow.

KAHUMBU: Several times, and then pulled out the whole tree.

GUTIERREZ: So how did you decide to study elephants?

KAHUMBU: I didn't initially want to study elephants because I was really scared that, one, studying them was dangerous. Not because elephants are dangerous, but because they were being followed by people with guns. And the second reason was because I thought they were going to go extinct.

I had it that if I do my Ph.D. in elephants and they go extinct, what a waste of time. It's a very weird thing to think now, but at the time that was really what was going on in my mind when I was doing my master's degree. And so I did my master's on monkeys, which was fun. I love monkeys, too. And then when I came back to the Kenya Wildlife Service, having finished my master's, I was working on monkeys and I was watching all my colleagues who were studying elephants. I was so jealous. They were going all over the country, counting elephants, counting dung, measuring elephants, doing all this really cool research. And I was counting monkeys.

GUTIERREZ: (Laughs) OK, OK.

KAHUMBU: It was. I was missing out. I was suffering so badly from FOMO. So I started going out with my colleagues at the Kenya Wildlife Service, and I started just going out with them to help. And I realized actually, I'm a natural at it. I loved the work. I loved being in the bush. We did a lot of work on foot on the ground following elephants, and I felt like I could read the elephants. And when it came time for me to apply for my own Ph.D., there was no question that I was going to study elephants.

GUTIERREZ: Yeah, you were studying forest-not forest elephants, but savanna elephants, in the forest.

KAHUMBU: So I had to go and find my own study site. And I decided to study forest-living savanna elephants because nobody had done it. People had known that there were elephants living in forests because you'd find dung everywhere. But nobody had seen the elephants. And you more or less don't want to see elephants in the forest, actually, because it's risky, you can't escape from them. And I thought I would take that on.

GUTIERREZ: And what did you learn? How did these savanna elephants-

KAHUMBU: So elephants are amazing. I think if there were no elephants, our forests in Africa would not be as diverse as they are. There's no way. When they come into the forest, they kind of bash their way in and create these pathways. So they open up these paths that many, many other animals use, including humans and their livestock. And you'll get herds of buffaloes coming in. Even giraffes can walk in.

And when elephants walk through these forests, what they're doing is they're munching on all this food and they're pooping it out. You can imagine, I mean, an elephant can carry 150 kilograms in its belly. So it's carrying a huge volume of stuff and it's moving massive distances, 15, 20 kilometers and dropping it along the way. You'll find the animals will come and find that dung and they'll start burrowing through it.

You'll often find a fresh elephant dung has just been scattered all over the place because these birds will come in and they'll start scattering it about looking for seeds and anything they can eat like grubs and things in the dung.

GUTIERREZ: It's like an airdrop.

KAHUMBU: It's, yeah. I mean, it is really like a little delivery from Amazon. Yeah. Yeah. "Oh, food." And all these animals will come scurrying and looking for, you know, to forage through it. As a result, the forest is very diverse in terms of species. And even an individual tree where an elephant will tusk it a little bit with this task. And in doing so it might injure the tree. Then the tree will try to repair itself and just start having all these warts and knots and nooks and crannies start forming on the trees. So a tree becomes a cavernous thing full of lots of little places for other animals to go and live in-and plants to settle in. When you remove elephants from these places, it's almost like the whole forest becomes quite silent.

GUTIERREZ: One of the biggest threats to African elephants is the ivory trade. After the break, Paula will talk about what it takes to get ivory off the black market and the United States' history as the number-one importer of the substance for almost 100 years.

One of your early experiences was working with the Kenya Wildlife Service's ivory stockpile. Could you tell me about what you were doing with them?

KAHUMBU: Yeah. When I finished my bachelor's degree, I came back to Kenya and I was invited to lead the first stock-take of the Kenyan ivory stockpile. It was an underground vault. The national museums where all the ivory was kept. It was really quite a disgusting job because this was an airless room full of just piles of ivory.

Ivory is one of those weird things that's very hard to store because they're all massive, big, curved things, and each one weighs tens of kilograms. They're very heavy. So they're just literally just sometimes just thrown in a pile. But each tusk is marked, where it came from, and the date that it was brought, and the weight of that tusk. And that was work that revealed to me just how serious the ivory crisis was-or the decimation of elephants was, because you could see that elephants, maybe 20 years earlier, were being killed for their ivory and they were full-grown elephants. And by the time I was doing that stocktake, baby elephants that were maybe two years old, three years old, were being killed.

GUTIERREZ: So Kenya had this stockpile. The ivory had been confiscated?

KAHUMBU: Almost all of it was ivory that had been associated with the slaughter of elephants.

GUTIERREZ: So what happened after you cataloged all the ivory?

KAHUMBU: We cataloged it for a very specific reason, which was to know how much there was and then to create a massive ivory bonfire. It was the first time that anyone had dreamed of such a crazy idea. That was Richard Leakey's idea. And a lot of people said, You can't burn ivory. It's like a tooth, you know? It can't burn. So he got this amazing, crazy guy called Robin. Robin created this beautiful pyre of ivory. And underneath it was firewood. And it was all gasoline and there were pumps and pipes and whatever to create an inferno that would turn that ivory into charcoal.

And they did it. It was phenomenal. Phenomenal. And all the ivory was destroyed and the vaults were empty. But it didn't take that long-25 years later, the vaults were full again. We've now burned ivory in Kenya five times.

GUTIERREZ: This is probably millions of dollars of ivory. What's the idea behind burning such a valuable substance?

KAHUMBU: If you talk to Richard Leakey-who sadly has now passed away, he was a very good friend of mine-he felt, if you want to change hearts and minds, you need to create a spectacle that is going to be so impossible to erase from your mind. He felt that people needed to stop seeing ivory as valuable, stop seeing it as prestigious and start seeing it as shameful, despicable to be associated with having ivory.

The only thing driving the slaughter of elephants in Africa was the price of ivory because it could get onto the illegal markets. So making sure that the ivory price was rock bottom was really, really important. Sustaining that messaging, whether it's in Africa or here in the United States, which was the largest market.

GUTIERREZ: Really?

KAHUMBU: Yes. There are whole towns in this country that were founded on ivory. There's a town called Ivoryton.

GUTIERREZ: Oh, and it's just an ivory-

KAHUMBU: In Connecticut.

GUTIERREZ: I had no idea.

KAHUMBU: It's a town that was founded on ivory. And there's another town called Deep Water, also in Connecticut, they're very close to each other. Those two towns would receive ivory from Africa-together with slaves, actually. And those two things were intimately interlinked. And their fortunes were built on ivory.

So, yeah. So they built a whole industry. They had factories that would receive the ivory. They would carve the ivory into piano keys. That was one of the major uses of ivory. Billiard balls, hair combs, hair brushes. They were making toothpicks, all kinds of weird-

GUTIERREZ: Such little things.

KAHUMBU: Well, it was plastic. If you think about it, it was the original plastic. And then once we got real plastic, you didn't need that stuff anymore. And ivory became more of a prestigious thing. Those two towns I went to visit them to see for myself. They invited me for the unveiling of an elephant sculpture in Ivoryton. And it had this elephant sculpture all covered in this big cloak.

And I went through the factory, and I looked at all the things, how it all worked and everything. And they wanted to atone for what had happened and how this whole-this very thriving town-but it was built on ivory. And they unveiled this elephant. And it was an Asian elephant.

You know, it really struck me. The people received ivory in this country, in the United States, in Europe, even in Asia. They had no idea where it was coming from, or what kind of animal it came from. They didn't know-and even on the boxes of, you know, the toothpicks or whatever, it had an Asian elephant. They didn't know it was coming from Africa. They didn't know it was an African elephant.

GUTIERREZ: How bizarre.

KAHUMBU: Yeah, it's quite sad. So those poor ellies just died for-just forgotten. You know, It's awful.

(Sound of an elephant crashing through vegetation)

KAHUMBU (IN SECRETS OF THE ELEPHANTS DOCUMENTARY): This is Tolstoy. He's magnificent. He's 51 years old. He's a hero for all the bulls in this area. His tusks are almost too long to walk. You can see he has to raise his head to walk through vegetation. It's like a mammoth. We're so lucky to have these supertuskers. There are only about 25 left in the world. Each tusk weighs well over 100 pounds and that's why so many have been killed by Ivory poachers.

GUTIERREZ: So Tolstoy is Tim's uncle. What happened to him?

KAHUMBU: Tolstoy was another supertusker, and we filmed him just weeks before he died. He was such a magnificent elephant. Mostly, he was huge. Very, very tall. He had these unusual straight tusks. They were so long that the Kenya Wildlife Service actually had darted him and cut off the tips of his tongue tusks because they thought that he couldn't walk properly. They were catching on bushes and things. The tusks were so long. He was a very, very calm, gentle elephant. Really, really lovely. And he had a gang of other bulls who were always associated with him. And they were the symbols who were always with Tim. And Tolstoy and his gang-and Tim before-used to go on raids. And they would go to the neighboring farms at night and eat whatever they could eat, mostly tomatoes.

But he was gentle. He wasn't a troublemaker. He wasn't a violent elephant in any real sense of the word. But when it came to retaliation from the communities, he was the elephant that stood out. He was the one they targeted. And so a spear struck him in the back, similar to how Tim was injured when we first met him. Only, although Tolstoy was treated, it clearly was a very severe wound and it got infected and two weeks later he passed away. It's really, really tragic. And all the other ellies must have been so heartbroken to have lost the leader.

GUTIERREZ: Part of the challenge of elephant conservation, to my understanding, is elephants need a lot of space, and humans increasingly also need a lot of space. How can we create a relationship between our two species so that we both have room to survive?

KAHUMBU: You know, where Tolstoy lives-lived, it's really simple. It's not rocket science. That's what's so frustrating about it. Elephants need space. Elephants don't mind living with people, but you can't grow crops in a landscape with elephants. They're so smart. They will figure out how to come and get your crops, right?

A monkey will do it, too. Or a beetle. You might think you can maybe put pesticides on for beetles, but you're not going to easily stop an elephant. You might chase away a monkey, but you cannot easily chase away an elephant. That's what makes them so dangerous. So all these people who are trying to farm in this landscape, which is actually quite dry, is not a very good landscape for farming, but it's a very good landscape for livestock. And so people with their livestock lived and have lived with elephants in that area for thousands of years without any problems. It's only now that people are settling down. They're drilling boreholes, they're pumping water, trying to do cash crops, tomatoes and other crops. And it's creating a conflict which is predictable.

The sad thing is that the real landowners often are not the ones who are on the land farming. The people who come to farm are generally young people who are trying to just make a living. They don't actually have a history or a culture of living anywhere near elephants. They have no idea what to do. So they start banging things, making noise, flashing lights, throwing burning lumps of charcoal at the elephants and basically pissing elephants off. And of course, the elephants retaliate.

And those people have told me, I spend a lot of time talking to them, they've said, you know, they can't sleep at night. They can lose their entire season of crops in a night, which is true. I know it's true. But they also don't have money to build fences. "So we're going to take matters into our own hands. Elephant comes anywhere near my farm, I'll throw a spear." So that's what's happening. It's really, really unfortunate and could have been prevented.

I feel so sad about it because when you teach elephants to retaliate and to become violent, it's very hard to untrain them because they're like us. They remember.

You know, look, the situation facing elephants is-it is troubling. It keeps me awake at night. Yeah. I literally sometimes will not sleep for days because I'm trying to think, how are we going to find a way to solve this problem? It's no longer about creating a mountain of ivory and setting the match. That is not going to save them this time. We need new solutions. All those people who live in elephant landscapes need to benefit from the presence of elephants. I have this crazy idea that somebody said to me years ago and they said, "Why don't you give us shares in the elephants?" And I just dismissed it. I just, like, "Don't be silly. Go away. That's a crazy idea." Actually, maybe it's a brilliant idea. Maybe we should have shares in elephants. If the communities have shares in those elephants and the survival of elephants translates into revenue that comes in through tourism, and they earn money and more money by more elephants. More money because elephants are healthy. More money because elephants can move through the landscape. More money because elephants are having healthy babies. Maybe that's a solution.

Maybe we don't have to kill elephants, injure elephants, chase elephants all the time. Maybe the communities don't have to plant tomatoes. Maybe-maybe they can grow elephants as their cash crop. You know what I mean? What if people, local people had shares? Right now, they have no benefit. There is nothing they gain from having elephants in their landscape.

GUTIERREZ: Right.

KAHUMBU: That is the transformation we have to find. I've been talking to people and they're coming up with radical ideas, NFTs and cryptocurrencies and all kinds of cool things. I'm like, No, it's got to be so practical that a local person on the ground says, "That elephant is mine. And if you touch it you're in trouble because so long as that elephant is walking. I get my payment, right? So I'm going to go out of my way. I'm going to plant grass, not tomatoes, I'm going to plant grass. I'm going to make sure it's healthy. I'm going to make sure the pathways are clear. I'm going to tell everybody this elephant is on its way."

And you know, that that could be a solution for not just savanna elephants in East Africa. It would work for the desert elephants so that they can move from Etosha all the way down to the coast. It would even work in the rainforest. The people on the ground are poor. They're so poor, you can't fault them for trying to protect their families and their investments. So yeah, we need radical new ideas.

GUTIERREZ: This has been the second episode of our three-part series on elephants. Next week, we'll talk with explorers Sangita Iyer and Jyothy Karat about Asian elephants and their complicated history of life in captivity.

If you like what you hear and you want to support more content like this, please rate and review us in your podcast app and consider a National Geographic subscription. That's the best way to support Overheard. Go to natgeo.com/exploremore to subscribe.

We've created a hub on our website where you can see all of our coverage on elephants this month, including Secrets of the Elephants, a four-part National Geographic series hosted by Paula Kahumbu, streaming on Disney+.

We've included a link to the hub in our shownotes. It's right there in your podcast app.

CREDITS

This week's Overheard episode is produced by me, Brian Gutierrez.

Our other senior producer is Jacob Pinter.

Our senior editor is Eli Chen.

Our manager of audio is Carla Wills.

Our executive producer of audio is Davar Ardalan, who edited this episode.

Our photo editor is Julie Hau.

Ted Woods sound-designed this episode and Hansdale Hsu composed our theme music.

The National Geographic Society, committed to illuminating and protecting the wonder of our world, funds the work of National Geographic Explorer Paula Kahumbu.

This podcast is a production of National Geographic Partners.

Michael Tribble is the vice president of integrated storytelling.

Nathan Lump is National Geographic 's editor in chief.

Thanks for listening, and see you next time.

SHOW NOTES
Want More?
Check out even more coverage on elephants this month, including Secrets of the Elephants, a four-part National Geographic series streaming April 22 on Disney+. Visit NatGeo.com/elephants to learn more.
Also explore:
To learn more about Paula Kahumbu and her work introducing the next generation of Kenyans to wildlife, listen to our previous episode, " Kenya's Wildlife Warriors."

If you like what you hear and want to support more content like this, please consider a National Geographic subscription. Go to natgeo.com/exploremore to subscribe today.

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Episode 16: What will it take to save the savanna elephant?

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As the CEO of WildlifeDirect, Paula Kahumbu has dedicated her life to saving space for wildlife to thrive in Africa and building healthy relationships between humans and wild elephants. Paula got her start in wildlife conservation by measuring Kenya's stockpile of elephant tusks confiscated from poachers-12 tons in all.

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Refugee Assistance from One of Europe's Poorest Countries

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Refugee Assistance from One of Europe's Poorest Countries

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More than 400,000 Ukrainian refugees have poured across the border into the small country of Moldova, one of the poorest countries in Europe. Wedged between Ukraine and Romania, Moldova is a little bigger than Maryland, but it has received the most refugees per capita of any country in this crisis. Now Moldova is providing assistance and support to those who are choosing to stay in the country.

Even as they open their doors to Ukrainian refugees, many in the small country fear they may be next in line for invasion by Russian forces. Moldova declared independence from the Soviet Union shortly after its fall in 1991, but since then there have been Russian troops stationed in a separatist region of the country called Transnistria. Moldova fears it would not be able to fend off a Russian offensive.

NPR's Frank Langfitt explains why Moldova is in such a perilous position, and we talk to aid workers about how they are supporting Ukranians fleeing war.

In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment to help you make sense of what's going on in your community.

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.
This episode was produced by Eliza Dennis and Jessica Beck. It was edited by Natalie Winston. Our executive producer is Natalie Winston.

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Refugee Assistance From One Of Europe's Poorest Countries : Consider This from NPR

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More than 400,000 Ukrainian refugees have poured across the border into the small country of Moldova, one of the poorest countries in Europe. Wedged between Ukraine and Romania, Moldova is a little bigger than Maryland, but it has received the most refugees per capita of any country in this crisis.

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The Woman Who Knows What Elephants are Saying

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The Woman Who Knows What Elephants are Saying

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Episode 15: The woman who knows what elephants are saying

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Get to know the sounds of elephants—and what they’re saying.

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In 1957, the Space Age began with the launch of Sputnik, the first artificial satellite. Since then, the number of objects humans have hurled toward the stars has soared to the thousands. As those objects have collided with one another, they've created more space debris in Earth's orbit. According to some estimates, all of that debris and human-made space trash, the number of objects - from satellites to screws - could be in the millions.

This debris has to be tracked to avoid collisions, which can force the International Space Station (ISS) to be redirected, disrupting pre-planned initiatives like space walks. A collision with space debris as small as 1 cm could penetrate ISS shields, harming the station. And the more objects we launch into orbit, the denser the traffic becomes to navigate.

One potential solution? Apply ideas of green sustainability to the companies and governments that do the launching, says Danielle Wood, an assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT.

As part of Short Wave's AAAS live show series, Danielle sat down with co-host Aaron Scott to talk about a vision of sustainability in space. The effort begins with the Space Sustainability Rating (SSR), an incentive system modeled after LEED certifications for green buildings. The system is multifaceted, considering aspects like collision preparedness, information sharing and future debris reductions. At least one company has already applied for and received a certification using the SSR. That initial rating was bronze, the lowest of four possible ratings.

"In some ways, I was pleased that our first rating was low because it means we are all saying there's more to work to do and to grow," says Wood. For her, the initial rating is simply the entry point for an ongoing conversation with outside companies in the booming space industry. A company's rating is changeable based on their ongoing missions and efforts. The goals is for companies to increasingly own the social responsibility of being major players influencing the future of space exploration and technology.

"We've been dreaming for years of things like space robots being able to build space stations that humans can go visit. Such things are being now going from the dreaming stage to the venture capital stage. ... As we make these dreams a reality, let's be so thoughtful about the possible long term implications of our actions," says Wood.
Have a story about space innovation you'd love us to share? Launch it our way at This episode was produced by Berly McCoy, edited by Rebecca Ramirez and fact checked by Brit Hanson. Josh Newell engineered the audio. shortwave@npr.org.

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The importance of sustainable space exploration in the 21st century : Short Wave

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In 1957, the Space Age began with the launch of Sputnik, the first artificial satellite. Since then, the number of objects humans have hurled toward the stars has soared to the thousands. As those objects have collided with one another, they've created more space debris in Earth's orbit.

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What could we do with a third thumb? : Short Wave

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Today on the show, we meet a prosthetic designer and a neuroscientist fascinated with understanding how the brain and body might adapt to something we haven’t had before — a third thumb. Dani Clode and Tamar Makin spoke to Short Wave in Washington D.C., at the 2023 annual meeting for the American As…

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Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

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Our Podcast - Answer to Interview Questions

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Our Podcast - Answer to Interview Questions

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Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

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We are an art-based initiative that seeks to create safe spaces for discussions on emerging societal issues through art in all its forms to create awareness geared towards the creation of solutions…

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https://twistedwave.com/online

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TwistedWave is a browser-based audio editor. You only need a web browser to access it, and you can use it to record or edit any audio file.

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Make some noise, explore a new sound, create a song or collaborate with others. Welcome to the collective of passionate music creators, whether you already are one or aspire to become one.

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https://padlet.com/emilyh53/podcast-project-4aqrgeq0kyb69o83/wish/2601585977

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Success stories from Kenya's first makerspace | Kamau Gachigi

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How to Start Podcasting with Students using Soundtrap

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Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

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How artificial intelligence will affect jobs in Africa - TRT Afrika

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The African Development Bank projects that some 100 million youth on the continent won’t be able to find any new jobs by 2030 due to technological advancement.

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Sponsorships

Motivate and Connect sponsorship goal

R46 000

This sponsorship will go to starting 4 FLL teams by paying for EV4 technic lego kit as well as the FLL field and registration fee. is also covers cost of getting to the schools for regular workshops are coaching sessions. The Connect part of this sponsorship will go towards expenses related with our stem outreach.

Robot build sponsorhship goal

R50 000

These funds are for our robot parts for the season, this is similar each year because we are always improving with better parts as well as replacing old or broken ones. We also have to buy season spcific parts that are unique to each season as well as the game field for practice and autonomous programming

Pit budget for Nationals and Worlds

R10 000

These funds will go towards our pit area at nationals with displays of what we have done in the season including Robot design process, Outreach, Sponsors, Connect award outreachs, and some fun extra stuff about our team. Then if we qualafy for Worlds we will reuse most of it with some added info about South Africa

Worlds Travel and entrance fee

R430 000

If we qualify for worlds we will need funds to cover our travel expenses and entrance fee

Our current sponsors that have helped us get this far include

Sponsorship

Our full budget for the entire team of 9 members and 2 coaches to travel is around R389 000 (US$20 000). Thanks to some generous sponsors we have reached our initial target of R100 000 (US$ 5 500) that we needed to raise to enable our minimum required team to compete. So we are sending a team!

However, our weak currency means that some of the rest of the families are finding it difficult to raise the funds needed for flights and accomodation, so we are continuing to look for sponsorhship that will subsidise costs, enabling the rest of the team to make the trip to the World Championship too.

And here is where you can help that dream become a reality. We need businesses and individuals to partner with us in raising the necessary funds for Team Texpand to get to Texas, and we only have until the 24th March to decide if we have enough to register for the Championship or pull out. Considering the travel and accommodation expenses, we need to raise R35 000 per person. Please would you consider being part of our adventure and part of our mission to expand STEM skills in South Africa through robotics. To help make contributing as easy as possible, we have opened up a number of channels for you to make contributions. You can:

Pay directly into our Texapnd bank account. Texpand is a registered non-profit company.

Please use your name as a reference, unless you wish to remain anonymous.

Make easy online payments by clicking through to our Back-a-buddy campaign.

Click here to visit our campaign page.

Receive, in South Africa, an 18A tax certificate for contributions by making payment to FIRST SA - a PBO who runs FTC and will pass all funds on to us.

Please email teamtexpand@gmail.com to set this option up.

For corporate sponsors we are offering tiered sponsorship benefits according to your level of contribution.

Our current sponsors that have helped us get this far include

Expanding STEM skills through robotics

Outreach

Expanding STEM Skills through Robotics

The cost of professional robotics coaching is high and does not fit within the budget of everyone who is passionate about robotics. So, we have adopted a pay-it-forward coaching method, where we coach others, and subsequently those whom we taught, go on to coach others. If a team member has a skill, they take on the task of teaching that skill to others in the team who have an interest in it.

We have helped Silverlea Primary start an FLL team by sourcing the R3300 required for them to register a new team. In addititon we have spent many hours training them on thing like gears, solution design, coding, control systems, game strategy and presentation skills. They recently won the "Robot Design Award" in the Western Cape FLL competition.

We have reached out to various experts in our local STEM community who have been excited to provide our team with training. These have included professionals in Robotics Manufacturing and Engineering, Mechatronics Engineers, Software Engineers, Venture Capital Experts, Agile Methodology Experts.

We have reached out to other more experienced teams in the FIRST community who have inspired us expand our horizons and pointed us in the right direction when we have encountered difficulties. These include a First Robotics Team and top FTC team whose performance we admired.

We arranged an outreach event at Pinelands High School to create awareness of FIRST and FTC. They have since started an FTC team which hopes to compete in the next season.

About Us

History

Texpand is a First Tech Challenge team which was created in 2020. Our team has been on a steep learning curve, as many of us did not have much experience in robotics, coding and STEM skills when we started. But by working together, sharing knowledge and skills, and a fair deal of problem-solving our team managed to win the SA Nationals Innovation Award and Winning Alliance Award in both the 2020-2021 season and 2021-2022 season. Then in the 2022-2023 season we won SA regionals inspire award and were the Winning Alliance Captain, Then at SA nationals we again won the inspire award and were Winning Alliance Captain which meant we qualafied for Worlds in Texas, Houston. At worlds we won the 1st place think award in the and were placed 22nd in the Jemison divison.

Achievements and Awards

SA Nationals Rockwell Innovate Award

SA Nationals Winning Alliance Award - SA Nationals - 89 points - Solo Game

Unfortunately we never recived the trophies in this year

SA Nationals Ratheon Technologies Innovate Award

SA Nationals Winning Alliance Award - 108 points - Solo Game

SA regionals Inspire award - SA regionals winning aliance captain

SA Nationals Inspire award - SA Nationals winning aliance captain

Past Robots

Our 2022-2023 PowerPlay, award winning robot, was called "Buff". The descriptions of "Buff's" subsystems are below. Also see our robot reveal for "Buff" on the left

Our 2021-2022 Freight Frenzy, award winning robot, was called "Skinny". The descriptions of "Skinny's" subsystems are below:

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Sponsorships Motivate and Connect sponsorship goal R46 000 This sponsorship will go to starting 4 FLL teams by paying for EV4 technic lego kit as well as the FLL field and registration fee. is also covers cost of getting to the schools for regular workshops are coaching sessions.

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FIRST Championship | For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology

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Prepare to be inspired as you watch tens of thousands of students compete on the world stage at the FIRST Championship presented by Qualcomm Incorporated.

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The past two decades have witnessed the emergence of Machine Learning as one of the mainstays of information technology. In ML, the computers 'learn' as it automatically identifies patterns in data, thus making accurate predictions. The critical thing in a machine learning process is to select the right algorithm suitable for various applications. The below infographic shows some basic things about machine learning.

Frequently asked questions

What is Machine Learning?

Machine Learning is a field of study under Artificial intelligence that gives computers the ability to learn without being explicitly programmed.

What are the Algorithm types of Machine Learning?

Supervised Learning: The learner is required to learn the behavior of a function by referring to several input-output examples of the function.

Unsupervised Learning: Labelled examples are not available for reference to learn a function.

Reinforcement Learning: The learner is required to learn how to apply a function by taking the feedback from the real environment where the function result is displayed.

What are the steps to perform a Machine Learning task?

Collecting the data
Preparing the data
Training a model
Evaluating the model
Improving the performance

What are the Applications of Machine Learning?

Advertising & Business Intelligence
Autonomous (Self Driving) Vehicles
Facial Recognition
Surveillance System
Optical Character Recognition
Filtering Algorithms/News Feeds
Recommendation Engines (eg: Amazon)

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A Brief Introduction to Machine Learning - InApp

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The critical thing in a Machine Learning process is to select the right algorithm suitable for various applications. This infographic shows some basic things about Machine Learning.